Bizarre-looking dinosaur looks like it's been crossed with a parrot: See the drawing

The dinosaur, known as Oksoko avarsan, had two digits on each forearm and a long, toothless beak, similar to parrots

By Chris Ciaccia | Fox News


A newly discovered dinosaur fossil reveals the ancient creature may have had more in common with modern-day birds than other members of the species.

The dinosaur, known as Oksoko avarsan, had two digits on each forearm and what appears to be a long, toothless beak, similar to parrots, according to the study published in The Royal Society Open Science journal.

"Oksoko avarsan is interesting because the skeletons are very complete and the way they were preserved resting together shows that juveniles roamed together in groups," the study's lead author, Dr. Gregory Funston, said in a statement.

Artist's impression of Oksoko avarsan dinosaurs (credit: Michael Skrepnick)

O. avarsan, which was believed to be featherless and omnivorous, lived approximately 68 million years ago. It grew to roughly 6.5 feet long, or about the length of a giraffe's neck.

However, it's the two fingers on each limb that has surprised the researchers, as it may shed new light on dinosaur evolution.

"But more importantly, its two-fingered hand prompted us to look at the way the hand and forelimb changed throughout the evolution of oviraptors—which hadn’t been studied before," Funston added. "This revealed some unexpected trends that are a key piece in the puzzle of why oviraptors were so diverse before the extinction that killed the dinosaurs."

O. avarsan is not the only ancient birdlike dinosaur to garner attention in recent memory.

Earlier this month, researchers declared that the first-ever dinosaur feather discovered does indeed belong to the archaeopteryx, putting an end to a controversy that has waged within the scientific community for more than 100 years.

In March 2018, researchers suggested that archaeopteryx could probably fly but in a different manner from modern-day birds, in rapid, short bursts over small distances.

IT'S SCIENCE MONDAY

 

Panic at the pump: Researcher explores role of gas stations in horror films

by Mike Emery, University of Houston-Downtown


The gas station is often viewed as a harmless, benign stop for commuters and travelers. Looking back at a few classic horror films, however, these mainstays of the American landscape take on much deeper meanings.


University of Houston-Downtown researcher Dr. Chuck Jackson recently focused on three iconic horror films and the memorable (and frightening) scenes featuring gas stations. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956), "The Birds" (1962) and "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) all have pivotal moments centered around gas stations or gas pumps. During these respective eras, the gas station often served as a gateway to weekend escapes, day trips, vacations or other optimistic ventures. These films, however, juxtapose horrific situations with these otherwise benign and everyday environments.

He explores these scenes and deeper reflections on America's dependence on oil and gas in the article "Petrification and Petroleum: Affect, the Gas Pump and US Horror Films (1956–73)," which was recently published in the journal Film Studies.

"Starting in 1956, but throughout the 1960s, some of the most popular American horror films include a scene that takes place at a gas pump that goes terrifyingly wrong," said Jackson, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator of UHD's Film Studies Minor. "Each film destroys the presumed pleasures of getting gas to fuel a car as it heads to its next destination. Instead of a full tank, the films bring monstrosity and death."


The scenes Jackson explores include a menacing alien shape-shifting seed placed in a car's trunk by a dubious service attendant in "Body Snatchers"; an explosion caused by blood-thirsty fowl and a cigarette smoking citizen in "The Birds"; and a blinding explosion ignited by torch-wielding escapees from a zombie horde in "Living Dead." The characters' reactions to these events are what Jackson describes as "petrification meets petroleum."

As Jackson states at the onset of his article, these films "imbue scenes that take place at a gas pump with a horror so intense, it petrifies." Indeed, the reaction of protagonists to the events that take place at these service stations reflect paralyzing dread.


"The films uniquely join petroleum with petrification, or oil and the body's experience of terror—characters 'turn to stone' as they apprehend the horror of oil as an out of control and deadly force," he said.

He added that these fearful moments within these films counter the popularity of open highways and car culture found not just in films, but across the country.


"My argument is that the films index an alternative affect to what other scholars have termed the 'exuberance' of oil for Americans," he said. "The scenes elicit a feeling that is radically at odds with Big Oil's 1950s and 60s advertising and marketing campaigns and the seemingly progressive federal funding of our current national highway system—a project that guarantees private travel in individually owned cars will be the expectation for us all in the decades to come."

Jackson, also a Fellow in UHD's Center for Critical Race Studies, is a film scholar who frequently focuses his scholarly work on race and the horror genre. He previously explored the relationship between oil and gas and horror in the article "Blood for Oil: Crude Metonymies and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)" published in the journal Gothic Studies.

The horror genre, he said, provides deeper insights into human nature, culture and the environment than many audiences realize. His insights on the aforementioned films and the oil and gas industries reveal much about ourselves and our reliance on these resources.

"As scholars have made clear, the horror genre asks viewers to take pleasure in what we would otherwise find unbearable—fear and disgust—and often this includes forms of oppressive power," he said. "These case studies have a pedagogical value as they teach us to feel differently about the stranglehold that oil culture has on the world, which only came into being as such an intense fashion less than 100 years ago."


Explore further What makes a good horror movie? 

Provided by University of Houston-Downtown

Forest darkness helps stave off effects of nitrogen pollution – but this is set to change

Europe’s forests are sitting on a pollution timebomb which could rewrite their ecology when it explodes, say researchers.



October 1, 2020 by Aisling Irwin

Delicate forest floor plants such as wood sorrel or violet, and the balance among the tree species that tower above them, are all threatened by decades of accumulated nitrogen pollution. A study has found that the darkness of the forest has subdued the effects of nitrogen. But forests are destined to let in more light in the future as trees succumb to drought and disease.

Forests cover 40% of the European Union’s land area and are expanding in some countries, mostly because of active restoration or the abandonment of agricultural land. Forests provide services such as controlling erosion and cycling water but they are also increasingly threatened by droughts and diseases such as ash dieback.

To understand how they are responding to these challenges it is vital to study the forest floor, says Professor Kris Verheyen, an ecologist at Ghent University in Belgium.

‘This herb layer is very often forgotten. Some people call it the step-over layer – you step over it to look at the trees,’ he said.

Yet, in temperate forests, the life underfoot includes 80% of a forest’s biodiversity. The herb layer cycles key nutrients such as phosphorous, potassium and nitrogen, helps decompose tree litter and filters the next generation of trees – since seedlings need to pass through it to embark on their journey to the canopy, says Prof. Verheyen.

Records

In trying to understand more about the forest floor, he led a team that retrieved records, going back in some cases as far as 50 years, of 4,000 forest plots across Europe. For those whose locations were easily identified, the researchers visited to make updated measurements.

The team also carted forest soils from around the continent to their research station where they incorporated them into outdoor experimental environments, called mesocosms, in which they varied the plants’ access to nitrogen, temperature and light.

‘The basic question we wanted to answer was how do multiple global change drivers determine the trajectories of change over time,’ says Prof. Verheyen, who led the project, known as PASTFORWARD.

Overall, the team found that the key controlling factor in forest life was light, which acts as a bottleneck preventing other changes from exerting an effect.


‘This herb layer is very often forgotten. Some people call it the step-over layer – you step over it to look at the trees.’

Prof. Kris Verheyen, Ghent University, Belgium

Nitrogen pollution

One powerful example of this was the way it has held back the effects of nitrogen pollution.

Nitrogen deposition is a chronic problem caused by ammonia emissions from agricultural fertiliser and the creation of nitrogen oxides as a by-product of burning fossil fuels. It draws certain nutrients out of soils, acidifies land, and causes algae to grow in waterways.

The researchers found plenty of nitrogen deposition in forests and documented its consequences for species. But ‘the effects are not as strong as we expected because … the nitrogen is available but the plants (on the forest floor) can’t really benefit because they are limited by the amount of light that is available,’ said Prof. Verheyen.

Some plants – types that tend to be widespread and can survive in a variety of environments including non-native species – have the machinery to take advantage of an excess of nitrogen and grow more; others – which tend to be specialists with small ranges – do not. In shaded forests they are on an equal footing. But as soon as the canopy opens up and light pours in, those that can exploit the nitrogen pollution have an advantage.

As a result, European forests are already losing their more specialist species and thus experiencing a drop in biodiversity. Prof. Verheyen is concerned that forest canopies are in danger of opening up as trees die from drought and disease which may open the floodgates to nitrogen.

‘That will lead to rapid and very large changes in the herb layer,’ he said.

Drought – itself a result of climate change – has had a ‘massive’ effect killing trees in spruce forests in Germany, Belgium and France in recent years although broadleaf forests have been more resistant for now.

This does not mean that broadleaf forests are free from canopy-opening – one example is ash dieback disease. ‘We do have evidence that because of the dying off of the ash you get a lot of light and then the understorey really explodes because light is no longer a limiting resource,’ said Prof. Verheyen.

‘These large and probably abrupt changes that may happen in the herb layer will affect the tree regeneration and will certainly determine which species will be able to pass the herb layer filter and which not. It will have its consequences for nutrient cycling because this herb layer really impacts rate of decomposition.’
Forest dieback can open up protective canopies. When more light is let in, forests can succumb to drought and disease. Image credit – High Contrast/Wikimedia, licenced under CC BY 3.0 DE

Buffering

The researchers also discovered that forests have so far done a remarkable job of buffering plants against the broader climate change going on outside them.

Temperature measurements revealed that forests often have significantly different temperatures from what weather stations – always placed far from trees – record. In summer, for example, they are on average 4°C cooler. This is not only because thick canopies keep out the light, but also because evapotranspiration of water through the leaves and into the atmosphere sucks heat out of the forest, and the vegetation keeps out breezes that would mix warm air into the cool.

Climate models don’t take into account this buffering, despite the fact that two thirds of the world’s species live in forests and forest processes such as carbon and nutrient cycling depend on temperature, says Professor Pieter de Frenne, a bioscientist also at Ghent University, who is leading the parallel FORMICA project investigating forest microclimates.

This, in turn, explains why, in intact forest, there has been less ‘reshuffling’ of forest species than was predicted as Europe warms, he says – forest-buffering has allowed many species to cling on.

‘We would have expected that forest plants would have responded already to a stronger degree – so that more warm-adapted species would have come into the community and more cold affinity species would have declined or even become locally extinct.’

But the effect can’t last forever and if the canopy is opened up these species will have a rude awakening as their world warms up to the temperature outside the forest.

‘Buffering is buying us time so species get a chance to adapt to the new climate,’ he said.

The work has practical implications for the way forests are managed and the PASTFORWARD and FORMICA teams are now hoping to develop a tool to help forest managers work out how much of the canopy they can remove – for example for harvesting or as part of the cycle of tree-thinning known as coppicing – without triggering this explosive growth.

Some experts consider there to be seven layers in a forest, while Prof. Verheyen’s team have based their work on three interconnected layers. Image credit – Horizon

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

Published by Horizon

Lightweight, Bendy, Cheaper – The Promise Of Organic Solar Panels

October 12, 2020 Horizon Magazine

Today’s silicon solar panels are an industry standard, but these rigid, heavy blocks may be shunted aside by plastic rivals – lightweight, flexible solar panels that could be printed and stuck onto buildings or placed in windows or cars, turning light into electricity in locations inaccessible to their heavier cousins.

The standard solar panels we see on homes and businesses are made from crystalline silicon. These rigid photovoltaic (PV) panels convert light into electricity.

They weigh 20 to 30 kilogrammes per square metre and so cannot be placed easily onto all building roofs or onto facades. There is an alternative and more flexible competitor to silicon PVs, however.

Instead of silicon, researchers in Europe are working on organic photovoltaic (OPV) technologies. Organic simply means carbon-containing molecules and OPVs can be thought of as plastic solar cells. They offer advantages over silicon-based solar panels.

‘Their manufacture process (has the potential to be) cheaper, they are lightweight, offer flexibility in their architecture and in principle they can be more environmentally friendly,’ said Dr Francesca Fassioli, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University, US.

Plastic solar panels can weigh around 500g per square metre – more than 40 times lighter than their silicon counterparts. Plastic panels can be attached to the fronts of buildings or placed on the roofs of buildings that might struggle to safely support standard solar panels. Organic solar cells are also much thinner than silicon solar cells, offering substantial savings on materials, which is good for the environment.

In theory, plastic solar cells should also be easier to manufacture. ‘The main difference between silicon technologies and OPV is that we are able to print it or coat it onto something as a thin film,’ said Damien Hau, research, development and innovation manager at Armor, an engineering company headquartered in Nantes, France.

One of the company’s first such products, launched last year, has been installed on commercial greenhouses near Nantes to provide shade and generate electricity. Armor recently bought a German company, Opvius, that specialises in designing shaped plastic solar panels that could be used decoratively on buildings.

Organic PVs can be as thin as a few millimetres in thickness and can be placed onto plastic polyester films.

Armor has created thin semi-transparent OPVs that can be fitted inside windowpanes, so that office windows could filter out some sunlight while turning it into electricity.

Films containing organic solar cells means they can be integrated into everyday objects such as benches. Image credit – ARMOR/GerArchitektur

Alternative

While most standard solar panels are imports, plastic solar panels are a new technology that companies in Europe can push forward as an alternative.

Almost 90% of all PV panels around the world today are made from crystalline silicon, which is an established technology on the market for decades. Typically they can convert 18% to 22% of the energy from sunlight into electricity.

Organic PV panels are a newer technology and have the disadvantage of lower efficiencies and higher production costs – partly because it is such a small industry, for now.

‘These are the two issues that our new project BOOSTER is working to solve,’ said Hau, referring to a new €6 million research project that his company is leading. The consortium will work on the best light-harvesting molecules, which in labs can approach 17% efficiency today. Standard panels generate 150 to 200 watts per square metre, whereas commercial OPVs generate 40 watts per square metre. BOOSTER aims to get this up to 150 watts.

It will push also towards lower costs for producing plastic solar panels. As a newer technology, some of the components were not designed for these solar panels but taken from other devices.

For example, as an organic material, plastic solar panels need shielding from ultraviolet radiation. Today, a thin film is used that is needlessly expensive. This is because it was developed to protect organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens, which are in high-end televisions and require flawless films.

‘(Organic solar cells) are lightweight, offer flexibility in their architecture and in principle they can be more environmentally friendly.’

Dr Francesca Fassioli, Princeton University, US

‘We don’t require that same quality for a barrier for OPV technology,’ Hau explained. A newly designed film specific for plastic solar panels could be far less expensive but still get the job done.

The project consortium, which consists of companies and academic partners, will make two demo products. First, a stick-on solar panel that can be attached to a door or floor or car or roof. ‘This is to prove that there is another way to do solar panels,’ Hau said. The sticky light-harvesting material will be installed on the headquarters of the energy company ENI in Rome, Italy.

A second demo product will see the plastic solar panel attached to textiles, of the sort that often cover buildings under renovation. This will be installed on a university building in Nuremberg, Germany, by a partner in the project.

Planting seeds

While researchers here hope their efforts on organic PVs will bear commercial fruits in the very near future, other scientists are planting the seeds of future advances in solar power. This is the case with theoretical physicist Dr Fassioli, who will soon join the group of Professor Stefano Baroni at SISSA in Trieste, Italy.

Theoretical physicists use mathematical models and theory to explain the world around us, ideas which are then tested in experiments by others. Albert Einstein who revolutionised physics with ideas, pen and paper is perhaps the most famous theoretical physicist.

In her QuESt project, Dr Fassioli will therefore not be handling prototype solar panels, but instead investigate the fundamentals of how organic molecules interact with light, in order to increase the power conversion efficiencies of organic solar cells.

‘This is not about creating new molecules,’ said Dr Fassioli, ‘but about how to use the typical molecules in a more clever way.

To simplify, in a solar panel light is absorbed by molecules which become excited and release an electron, which creates electric current.

Dr Fassioli considers how optical cavities can trap particles of light. Optical cavities essentially consist of two microscopic mirrors to trap light particles (photons). If you place a material inside an optical cavity, a photon is continuously swapped between the material and the cavity and this gives rise to a new hybrid state.

The strange hybrid (called a polariton) is made of both light and matter. The phenomenon involves quantum physics, so can seem counterintuitive, even weird.

This hybrid state ‘can involve thousands or millions of molecules, such that the molecules no longer behave as independent,’ said Dr Fassioli, ‘but they become synchronised by the coupling to the light in the optical cavity.’

Her project will generate scientific publications and new knowledge and ideas about the interplay of matter and light. ‘We think this synchronised collective behaviour of excited molecules can be exploited to enhance the efficiency of photovoltaics,’ Dr Fassioli explained.

‘This is a bottom-up approach in terms of understanding mechanisms that will modify the properties of (organic solar cells), rather than pursuing an immediate application for commercial applications,’ noted Dr Fassioli. But the hope is that this work will in future years improve organic solar cells so that they convert more of the sun’s rays into electricity.

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

Published by 

Black police officers disciplined disproportionately for misconduct, research finds

by Indiana University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

An examination of racial differences in the disciplining of police officers in three of the largest U.S. cities consistently found that Black officers were more frequently disciplined for misconduct than White officers, despite an essentially equal number of allegations being leveled. This included allegations of severe misconduct.


"We found a consistent pattern of racial differences in the formal recording of disciplinary actions in three different major metropolitan cities: Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles," wrote a group of six management professors at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. "Our results showed that Black officers were more likely to have recorded cases of misconduct, despite there being no difference between Black and white officers in the number of allegations made against them.

"It is impossible to know whether these differences are due to racial bias versus some other unmeasured factors. However, it is noteworthy that the pattern of results is in line with what theories of racial bias would predict and with evidence of racial disparities in punishment in other settings.

Authors of the article, "The Race Discipline Gap: A Cautionary Note on Archival Measures of Behavioral Misconduct," are Sheri Walter, Eric Gonzalez-Mulé, Cristiano Guarana, Ernest O'Boyle Jr., Chris Berry and Tim Baldwin. All are in Kelley's Department of Management and Entrepreneurship. The article is forthcoming in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Using archival data, they found that Black officers in Chicago were disciplined at a 105 percent higher rate than white officers. In Philadelphia, Black officers were 48 percent more likely than white officers to have been disciplined. Allegations of misconduct include lack of service and verbal or physical assault.

After controlling for the number of allegations of misconduct, they found that Black officers were disciplined at an even higher rate—132 percent more often than white officers.

"Just as organizational leaders have implemented policies and procedures to mitigate adverse impact in hiring, they may need to implement checks to ensure that there is no adverse impact in the detection and enforcing of organizational misconduct," the Kelley professors wrote. "Just as bias by police against citizens has been very slow to change, it is likely that any bias within police departments has also been slow to change."

The professors analyzed archival information from the Citizens Police Data Project, which features information collected by the Chicago Police Department from 2001 to 2008 and 2011 to 2015, as well as administrative records from the Philadelphia Police Department from 1991 to 1998.

They also used data collected by the Analysis Group for the City of Los Angeles in 2003 and 2004 to assess whether there are race differences in the number of allegations made against officers. The results of their analysis of data from Chicago and Los Angeles found no differences in allegations between Black and white officers. Results were mixed for Hispanic and Asian officers.

The purpose of the study was to examine the use of archival organizational records as measures of behavioral misconduct. Given prior studies that Black people are more likely to be arrested, receive longer prison sentences and be suspended from school, the researchers set out to study whether Black employees—when compared to white employees—were subject to systematic differences in the documentation of misconduct.

"Similar to the issues facing the criminal justice and education systems, where racial disparities in punishment are well-documented, organizations face a difficult challenge in detecting and enforcing misconduct," researchers wrote. "Even when organizations adopt seemingly objective policies for addressing misconduct, it is still possible for certain groups to be disproportionately accused of misconduct and/or disciplined.


Explore further

Only 2% of black Chicagoan' allegations of police misconduct were sustained

More information: Sheryl L. Walter et al, The race discipline gap: A cautionary note on archival measures of behavioral misconduct, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.03.010

Journal information: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Provided by Indiana University

Indigenous Peoples' Day: These are the states that have ditched Columbus Day

By Scottie Andrew and AJ Willingham, CNN 

Columbus Day has been a political lightning rod for states, cities and municipalities around the US for years now. Some have decided to do something about it.  

© AFP Contributor/AFP/AFP/Getty Images A statue of Christopher Columbus at a downtown Los Angeles park is surrounded by a chain-link fence on October 9, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Virginia is the latest state to officially observe "Indigenous Peoples' Day" instead, a holiday to recognize the native populations that were displaced and decimated after Christopher Columbus and other European explorers reached the continent.

Technically, Columbus Day is a federal holiday, which means it is recognized by the US government and thus brings the closure of non-essential government offices, and, usually, places like post offices and banks.

But states and local governments can choose not to observe a federal holiday. And, as is the case with a growing number of places, change the name and intent of the October holiday altogether.

Not listed here are more than 130 cities that have ditched Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day -- and the list grows yearly.

States that officially celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day

Alaska: Observes Indigenous Peoples' Day as of 2017

Gov. Bill Walker signed observances of the holiday in 2015 and 2016 before making the switch official in 2017.

Hawaii: Observes Discoverers' Day in place of Columbus Day

Maine: Observes Indigenous Peoples' Day as of 2019

New Mexico: Observes Indigenous Peoples' Day as of 2019

Oregon: Observes Indigenous Peoples Day as of 2017

South Dakota: Observes Native American Day as of 1990

Vermont: Observes Indigenous Peoples' Day as of 2019


States and DC that observe Indigenous Peoples Day via proclamations

Iowa: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds made a proclamation in 2018 designating Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Louisiana: The Pelican State doesn't recognize Columbus Day. Gov. John Bel Edwards declared October 14, 2019, the state's first Indigenous Peoples' Day but hasn't issued a 2020 proclamation yet.

Michigan: On October 14, 2019, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared the day to be Indigenous Peoples' Day "to uplift our country's indigenous roots, history, and contributions."

Minnesota: In 2019, Gov. Tim Walz signed a proclamation declaring the second Monday in October Indigenous Peoples' Day. The state is home to 11 Tribal Nations.

North Carolina: Gov. Roy Cooper has made yearly proclamations designating the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Virginia: In 2020, Gov. Ralph Northam declared Monday the first Indigenous Peoples' Day in Virginia, calling it an "important step in creating an inclusive, honest Commonwealth." The state is home to 11 native tribes.

Wisconsin: Gov. Tony Evers established Indigenous Peoples' Day via an executive order days before the observance in 2019.

Washington, DC: The DC Council voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day a few days before the 2019 observance.


States that celebrate both holidays

Alabama: The state celebrates both Columbus Day and American Indian Heritage Day.

Oklahoma: In 2019, the state voted to move Native American Day to the same day as Columbus Day so the two could be celebrated concurrently.

Protesters in Portland topple statues of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt

Rachel Elbaum and Kurt Chirbas and Caroline Radnofsky 


Protesters in Portland, Oregon, pulled down statues of former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and broke windows late Sunday amid a demonstration on what organizers called an “Indigenous Day of Rage,” NBC local affiliate KGW reported.  

© Provided by NBC News Image: A group of protesters toppled statues of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in Portland's South Park Block (Sean Meagher / AP)

Monday is the federal holiday Columbus Day, which some cities and states have renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Earlier in the evening, police tweeted that a mass gathering had formed and that some protesters were trying to “pull down a statue with a chain.”

An hour later, police declared the protest a riot, ordered protesters to disperse and said that those who chose to stay would be subject to “arrest, citation, or crowd control agents, including, but not limited to tear gas and impact weapons.”

Photos taken after the protest showed the Lincoln statue resting on its head with spray paint on the base, while the Roosevelt statue rested on its side with orange spray paint on the base. In addition to the toppling of the statues, the glass front and doors of the Oregon Historical Society were smashed.

Video: Protesters topple statues of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt in Portland (NBC News)


In the announcement of the protest on Saturday, organizers Generational Resistance called on social media for an “end to colonialism” and the abolishment of the police in a post where they also asked for no photos or video to be taken.

They also warned indigenous people who wanted to bring “drums, medicine or regalia” that it “might not be the best event to bring things that are sacred to you.”

It was not immediately clear whether the statues were defaced by protesters involved in the Generational Resistance march.

Portland has become a flashpoint for sometimes violent political conflict. The city saw months of nightly protests after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, with some protesters lighting fires and antagonizing the police. In July, there were weeks of intense protests in the city after U.S. agents from the Department of Homeland Security were sent to guard a federal courthouse.

President Donald Trump, who has frequently criticized the protests in Portland, on Monday published a series of tweets about Sunday night's demonstration, retweeting what appeared to be images of the damage and offering to send federal law enforcement.

In August, he praised a pro-Trump caravan of activists whose presence appeared to contribute to violent clashes in the city.

See all

The Dakota 38 execution was the largest mass execution in the United States and took place on December 26, 1862. On the day after Christmas in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged under order of President Abraham Lincoln. The hangings and convictions of the Dakota 38 resulted from the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 in southwest Minnesota.

The Traumatic True History and Name List of the Dakota 38

After demonstrations, Nigerian president pledges to punish police brutality

By Felix Onuah 

© Reuters/NIGERIA PRESIDENCY FILE PHOTO: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari addresses the nation in Abuja

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari promised on Monday that the government would bring police officers responsible for misconduct to justice, after nearly a week of protests against police brutality that were met by a harsh response.

At least one person has been killed since the demonstrations began. Police have opened fire with guns at marchers, as well as using water canons and tear gas to disperse them. More than a thousand demonstrators returned to streets around Nigeria on Monday.

On Sunday, authorities announced they were disbanding the Special Anti-Robbery Squad police unit, known as SARS, the target of demonstrators who accuse it of beating up and killing Nigerians and extorting from them.

Rights groups and protesters said they were unconvinced by the promise to disband the SARS force, saying the authorities had pledged to dissolve or reform the unit in the past with little change.

In a statement on Monday, Buhari promised "extensive police reforms", acknowledging "genuine concerns and agitations by Nigerians about the excessive use of force and in some cases extra-judicial killings and wrongful conduct of the men of the Nigerian Police Force."

But he also described police misconduct as relegated to a "few bad eggs".

(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Peter Graff)

Thai government says 'can handle' student-led protest

By Panarat Thepgumpanat 

© Reuters/SOE ZEYA TUN FILE PHOTO: Pro-democracy protesters attend a mass rally in Bangkok

THEY ARE USING THE THREE FINGERS SIGN FROM THE HUNGER GAMES

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The Thai government said on Monday it was not concerned about a student-led demonstration on Wednesday as protest leaders sought to escalate their push to demand a new constitution and oust Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.

During three months of protests, anti-government activists have also broken a taboo by calling for reforms of the powerful monarchy of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who is "enthroned in a position of revered worship" according to the constitution.

Protesters, who drew tens of thousands of people to a demonstration last month, said they planned to gather on Wednesday at Bangkok's Democracy Monument before moving to Government House and would camp there overnight.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters that he did not expect huge turnout.

"We're prepared and not worried," he said. "I think we can handle it."

The protest leaders, organising under the new banner of the People's Movement, said their focus would be a call for constitutional changes before a parliament sitting on Nov. 1.

"We also want to oust Prayuth," said Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul, one of the leaders, adding that she expected even more people than at last month's protest in Bangkok.

Protesters say the constitution was engineered to ensure that Prayuth, who first seized power in a 2014 coup, continued in office after an election last year. He says the election was fair.

Some protesters also want a reduction in the king's powers to reflect Thailand's status as a constitutional monarchy.

Raising the prospect of an encounter between the king and the protesters, his motorcade is due to pass Democracy Monument on Wednesday as he presides over a ceremony at a royal temple during a rare visit to Thailand.

Police said they would urge protesters to choose another location or at least clear the way for the motorcade.

Arnon Nampa, another of the protest leaders, said last week that demonstrators would not obstruct the motorcade but would show a three-finger salute - a symbol of resistance - if it passed by.

(Writing by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)