Larry Nassar survivors sue Michigan State over alleged 'secret decisions' on releasing documents

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Women who were sexually assaulted by former Michigan State University sports doctor Larry Nassar filed a lawsuit Thursday saying school officials made “secret decisions” about releasing documents in the case.

The group of survivors and parents says the lawsuit seeks accountability — not money — from the university. They say the school refused to give the state attorney general’s office more than 6,000 documents for an investigation into how Nassar was allowed to get away with his behavior, and later wouldn't turn over emails about the board of trustees' decision-making. The school has said the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.

“It’s really, really hard to heal when you know there’s still answers to a lot of your questions out there,” Nassar survivor Elizabeth Maurer said at a press conference Thursday in East Lansing.

Nassar was sentenced in 2018 to 40 to 175 years in prison after he admitted to molesting some of the nation’s top gymnasts for years under the guise of medical treatment. He was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of women and girls.

Michigan State has been criticized for its handling of the Nassar investigation and its dealings with survivors in the aftermath of his arrest and conviction. The school has settled lawsuits filed by Nassar victims for $500 million.

Mark Bullion, a spokesperson for Michigan State, said in an email Thursday that the school does not comment on pending litigation, and that the school has not seen or been served with the new lawsuit

Related video: Nassar victims sue Michigan State over documents (The Associated Press)
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India TodayWhy Larry Nassar is so controversial

2:34

The civil suit names the school and its elected trustee board, saying the decisions and “secret votes” by a public body skirted Michigan's open meetings laws and the state Constitution.

“We contend that board members made a behind-closed-doors secret decision not to release the records in blatant violation of the Open Meetings Act,” victims' attorney Azzam Elder said in a release.

Elder said at Thursday's press conference that he has asked an Ingham County judge for a jury trial and that video deposition of the board members be allowed. “If you’re going to lie about it, at least have the guts to do it publicly,” Elder said.

The suit wants the school to turn over emails and other communications about decisions trustees may have made out of the public eye and to have a court declare that Michigan State violated the Freedom of Information Act, and to compel the university to comply with both FOIA and the Open Meetings Act going forward.

Attorney General Dana Nessel has asked the school to release the more than 6,000 documents to help shine a light on what the school knew about the abuse. She ended her investigation in 2021 of the school's handling of the Nassar case because the university refused to provide documents related to the scandal.

“This is about who knew what, when at the university,” Nassar survivor Melissa Brown Hudecz said in a statement read Thursday. “We can’t heal as a community until we know that everyone who enabled a predator is accountable. By protecting the 6,000 secret documents and anyone named in them, the board is adding to survivors’ trauma with their lack of institutional accountability.”

Earlier this month, Nassar was stabbed multiple times by another prisoner in his federal penitentiary cell in Florida. The prisoner said Nassar provoked the attack by making a lewd comment about wanting to see girls play in the Wimbledon women's tennis match while they were watching the tournament on TV, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the attack or the ongoing investigation and did so on condition anonymity.

___

Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan.

Corey Williams And Joey Cappelletti, The Associated Press

Church sex abuse revelations are unwelcome distraction as Pope Francis visits scandal-hit Portugal

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — When a panel of experts read aloud some of the harrowing accounts they had collected from recently discovered victims of child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church, the country’s senior bishops squirmed in the auditorium's front-row seats.

During a live television broadcast, the experts reported in February that at least 4,815 boys and girls had been abused since 1950, most aged 10-14.

Before the stunning findings, senior Portuguese church officials had maintained there had been only a handful of cases of clergy sex abuse. They lost even more credibility with a response so clumsy and hesitant that victims were inspired to form Portugal's first survivor advocacy group to press for compensation.

Pope Francis will wade into the quagmire of Portugal’s reckoning with its legacy of clergy abuse and cover-up when he arrives in Lisbon next Wednesday to participate in World Youth Day, the international Catholic youth rally. While there is no mention of the scandal on the pontiff’s official agenda, he is expected to meet with victims during his visit.

Francis will also visit the shrine at Fatima, a rural Portuguese town that is one of the Catholic Church’s most popular pilgrimage destinations. In 1917, three Portuguese shepherd children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary above a tree there, a singular event of 20th century church history.

Antonio Grosso, who says he was sexually abused at a former religious shelter for boys in Fatima in the 1960s, chafes at the contrast in the church’s approach.

Church officials “don’t believe what victims tell them, but they do believe little children who say they’ve been listening to the lady above (a tree),” the 70-year-old retired bank employee says.

Portugal is the latest country to confront decades of abuse by priests and cover-ups by bishops and religious superiors. Yet Portuguese church leaders seem to have learned little from their fellow bishops in the U.S., Europe and Latin America who faced similar crises.

Since the report’s release, the Portuguese hierarchy has flip-flopped over the possible — and still unresolved — issue of payment of reparations to victims. It has balked at suspending active members of the clergy named in the report.

Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, a U.S. group that maintains an online archive on abuse in the Catholic Church, said Portugal's bishops had expected the independent commission would help them restore trust by revealing the history of abuse and cover-up while allowing them to “apologize, give assurances of reform, and move on.”

“Their plan backfired terribly,” she said in an email. "With its finding of nearly 5,000 victims and its startling claim of accused priests still in ministry, the commission turned out to be more independent than the bishops bargained for ... It was a disastrous miscalculation.”

With the shocking results, church authorities at first argued that possible reparations were a matter for the courts, which in Portugal are backlogged and notoriously slow to reach decisions, often taking many years. Lisbon Cardinal Manuel Clemente said the church would do only what courts determined it must do.

“Everything that can be done in accordance with the law will be done according to the law,” Clemente explained. “But don’t expect us to do anything else, because we can’t do anything else.”

He and other officials also remarked that under Portuguese law, the perpetrator is liable for any compensation payments — not the institution to which that person belongs.

Clemente said it would be “insulting” to offer reparations to victims. Furthermore, he and other church officials claimed that none of the victims in an online questionnaire created by the commission of experts said they were seeking reparations. The commission told The Associated Press that’s not true.

By April, the church had softened its position, saying it didn’t rule out reparations. It promised to “make help available” for victims and said if convicted perpetrators couldn’t pay, the church would. Officials have not elaborated on those plans.

Clemente also claimed the Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Catholic Church, a group of experts set up by Portuguese church authorities, had handed the church just a list of names of alleged abusers that was not backed up by factual evidence.

That comment irked the experts, who said they took pains to ground their findings and provide supporting documentation, including witness statements admissible in court.

Also, church authorities said active clergy named as alleged abusers could be suspended from their duties only after due legal process where they could present their defense, presumably in a courtroom. Officials, under public pressure, later suspended four of the two dozen priests identified in the report.

The church promised last March to build a memorial to the victims that would be unveiled during the World Youth Day celebrations. A few weeks before the pope’s arrival, in another embarrassment, it scrapped that plan and said vaguely that something would be done later.

Grosso, the abuse victim, says he and others were so “outraged and deeply upset” by the church’s response that they created a lobby group, called the Silenced Heart Association, to help victims obtain reparations. The group is also to provide psychological support and pro bono legal aid.

Grosso’s personal journey has taken him from would-be priest studying as a child at a Portuguese seminary to co-founder of the first church sex abuse victim association in Portugal. As a child, he says, he enjoyed Mass so much that he re-enacted it at home.

But between the age of 10 and 12, studying away from home, Grosso says he was sexually abused first by a priest and later by a Franciscan friar.

Wracked by guilt and trauma, for 10 years he never spoke to anyone about what had happened. As a teen, he had episodes of “rage, humiliation, shame,” he says. The upshot: a boy who wanted to be a priest became an adult atheist.

Only as a young adult did he begin to broach the subject with friends. He told his girlfriend, who became his wife. They had two daughters.

When Grosso publicly recounted his story in a 2002 Portuguese magazine interview, having felt encouraged to do so by revelations of church sex abuse emerging around the world, his then 27-year-old daughter Barbara sent him a handwritten letter. He has kept it folded up in his wallet for the past two decades. The letter salutes his courage and tells him his daughter is proud of him. Reading it aloud, he tears up.

He feels moved to act now, he says, because the church reacted with “contempt” to the torment of victims and is still trying to cover up the truth. He would like to see Pope Francis speak about the issue while in Portugal.

The church in Portugal has apologized for the abuse. It is working with Portugal’s main victims’ support association and is establishing procedures and tailoring its responses to sex abuse in the church. Staff at the World Youth Day are receiving specific training on how to prevent and spot abuse.

The problem, however, extends far beyond Portugal, says Barrett Doyle.

Portugal’s reckoning lags behind what has already happened in the United States, Australia, France and Germany, she said, but is on a par with the church responses in Spain and Poland and most countries in South America, Central America, and Africa.

“In other words, and sadly, the Portuguese hierarchy is not an outlier; it’s representative,” she said.

___

Helena Alves contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Barry Hatton, The Associated Press

Partial settlement reached in lawsuit against Calgary Stampede over abuse of boys

Story by The Canadian Press • Wednesday, July 26,2023

CALGARY — A partial settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit against the Calgary Stampede that alleged the organization allowed a performance school staffer to sexually abuse young boys. 

Phillip Heerema received a 10-year prison sentence in 2018 after pleading guilty to charges including sexual assault, sexual exploitation, child pornography and luring. 

Heerema admitted to using his position with the Young Canadians School of Performing Arts, which performs each year in the Calgary Stampede Grandstand Show, to lure and groom six boys into sexual relationships. The school is operated by the Calgary Stampede Foundation.

The offences took place between 2005 and 2014, as well as in 1992. 

In court Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs and the Stampede announced the settlement. It involves an admission of negligence and breach of duty, but it must still be approved by a judge. 

The Stampede would pay damages that are to be worked out later this summer.

"The Calgary Stampede takes responsibility in the hopes of helping the victims to heal," the Stampede said in a statement Wednesday.

"We can’t change the events of the past, but we are deeply sorry for how the victims have been affected."

It said it has taken meaningful steps to enhance the safety and wellness of its young participants.

"Our commitment to those impacted is to do everything possible to guard against anything similar ever happening again."

The statement of claim alleged the performance school failed in its hiring and supervision of Heerema, that it created or permitted an atmosphere tolerant of inappropriate sexual behaviour, and that it didn't adequately investigate and act on one or more complaints.

Lawyer Gavin Price appeared in court on behalf of the three dozen plaintiffs, all men who were students, employees, contractors or volunteers with the performance school.

"We are resolving a significant portion of the class action, but not the entirety of it, so we resolve what I would call the liability phase," he said.

"We're trying to resolve what we can for the class and move on. There's an incredible amount of complexity when we're dealing with historical sexual abuse and sexual assault."

Price said working out the damages will be "a fight for another day."

Court of King's Bench Justice Alice Woolley set a hearing for Sept. 25 to determine whether to approve the deal after all the plaintiffs are notified and have a chance to object, if they wish.

"I really want to commend counsel for their work on this," she said. "It is no easy task to reach agreement on a case like this, when there's so much at stake for everyone involved."

About a dozen people were in the courtroom, including some of Heerema's victims.

"It was good to see the resolution on the issues of liability. It saved us having to go through a fight," one of the men said outside the courtroom.

"It's something that never should have happened and we go to take steps to address it and make sure it never happens again."

Another man said the settlement is "a relief and a long time coming."

However, he said he's not sure the performance school has been made safer.

"We're just supposed to take their word that they've made changes to these programs to address the culture that allowed what happened to happen for almost 30 years, and personally I don't really trust their ability to make changes without being held accountable."

Another man, who came forward with his story of abuse in 2013, said it has been a long process for all the victims.

"It's been 10 years and the Stampede has done nothing for me," he said.

"The criminal investigation and criminal trial took less time than the civil proceedings. This has gone on for so, so long."

Heerema is also named in the lawsuit but is still incarcerated, said Price, so the claim against him will be dealt with at a later date.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2023. 

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

'The Kerala Story': How an Indian propaganda film ignited violence against Muslims and challenges to interfaith marriage

Story by Wajiha Mehdi, PhD Candidate, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia

 • Yesterday 

The Conversation

A controversial low-budget Indian feature film The Kerala Story, about a discredited anti-Muslim conspiracy theory, has been causing a political storm, going all the way to India’s Supreme Court.

The movie has helped circulate the idea of “love jihad,” a right-wing conspiracy theory that Muslim men are predators and out to marry and steal Hindu women. These ideas date back to the British colonial era and have far-reaching implications for people’s everyday lives.

The trailer claimed 32,000 Hindu girls had been converted to Islam by Muslim men with the intent of recruiting them to ISIS.

Once the film came out, citizens tried to get it banned by sending a petition to the India’s Supreme Court.

“Love jihad” is a conspiracy theory that claims Muslim men are converting Hindu and Christian women to Islam. Allegedly, the men feign love, get the women pregnant and eventually traffic them. The motive? To increase the Muslim population of India, perpetuate fanaticism and ultimately establish an Islamic state.

According to a recent Pew Report, 99 per cent of married people in India share the same religion as their spouse. Muslims account for approximately 14 per cent of India’s population.

There is no such thing as a “love jihad” and an investigation by India’s National Investigation Agency has said there is no evidence of “love jihad” taking place.

Political fallout

The figure of 32,000 women in the film’s trailer was immediately challenged by Indian political leaders and also debunked by fact-checkers from the website, Alt News.

The filmmakers agreed to change the number and a new trailer was released. It removed and replaced “32,000 girls” with “the true stories of three girls.”

And the movie went forward with its release, which according to some news reports, was successful at the box office.

Challenges in the Indian Supreme Court

Some politicians decried the propagandist nature of the movie and in West Bengal, it was banned by the government. Politicians there said the film “manipulated facts and contains hate speech in multiple scenes” and they banned the film to “avoid violence and hatred.”

The Indian Supreme Court lifted the state ban though agreed that a disclaimer on the film was necessary. The disclaimer indicated that the film provides “no authentic data” to support the 32,000 figure and that it presents fictionalized accounts.

Other politicians, including some from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, promoted the film. Some of them even offered complimentary tickets or organized free screenings.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi endorsed the movie, assigning to it a distinct legitimacy.

Islamophobia from the 19th century

The idea of “love jihad” is both current and historical with notions coming from Indian and Hindu nationalism as well as 19th-century British colonial narratives. Both streams constructed Muslim men as hypersexual and hyperaggressive.

In the 19th century, Hindu scholars and new religious organisations (like Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha) began producing a new Hindu-centric version of Indian history. This history grew in response to British colonialism but at the same time, shared similarities with British colonial ideas.

The British portrayed themselves as just rulers, partly by contrasting themselves with their casting of Muslim kings as hypersexual fanatics.

They pointed to a medieval darkness marked by the lust and tyranny of Muslim rulers. Mughal rulers were portrayed as rapists attacking both Hindu women and “Mother India”. This portrayal included the Muslim Prophet Muhammad who was portrayed in some places as sexually perverse.

These ideas became part of the curriculum in certain Indian states and elite Hindu scholars, educated at colonial schools, perpetuated these narratives in their writing. And the idea of a type of “love jihad” became part of the discourse created through pamphlets, novels, newspapers and magazines — especially in North India.

By the late 19th century, India was constructed around Hindu heterosexual relationships and family values in opposition to Muslim sexual deviance and rampant Muslim sexuality.

In 1923, Madan Mohan Malaviya, the president of the Hindu Mahasabha said in a speech, “hardly any day passes without our noticing a case or two of kidnapping of Hindu women and children by not only Muslim badmashes (rogues) and goondas (hooligans), but also men of standing and means.”

Challenges to interfaith marriage

Today, it’s not just The Kerala Story that has circulated the “love jihad” myth. Reportage in Hindu nationalist media continues to make headlines.

Organiser, a magazine run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a network of Hindu nationalist organizations, recently reported that three cases of love jihad following the same pattern as those in ‘The Kerala Story’ were reported in a month.

Love jihad’s centrality to Hindu nationalist politics has led to specifically stringent laws focused heavily on sexuality and marriage.

Read more: India’s 'love jihad' anti-conversion laws aim to further oppress minorities, and it's working

Hindu vigilantes, in partnership with the police, launch missions to separate interfaith couples. Muslim men have been brutalized, killed, forced into hiding and incarcerated using historic anti-conversion laws.

One response to the chatter about “love jihad,” is an Instagram channel called India Love Project launched to celebrate stories of interfaith love and marriages.

This photo of a newlywed couple is from the Instagram account called the India Love Project. The groom is Muslim and the bride is Hindu-Punjabi.© (India Love Project)

Hopefully, such efforts continue to address Islamophobia and broaden to include a larger public discourse looking at transnational Islamophobic interlinkages, both past and present.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

• Listen: Indian PM Modi is expected to get a rockstar welcome in the U.S. How much is the diaspora fuelling him?
• India’s new citizenship act legalizes a Hindu nation

Wajiha Mehdi receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Public Scholars Initiative UBC, International Development Research Centre Canada and the University of British Columbia

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Jordan lawmakers move to criminalize some online speech. Rights groups accuse kingdom of censorship


JORDAN IS PALESTINE UNDER HASHEMITE RULE

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The lower house of Jordan's parliament passed legislation Thursday to punish online speech deemed harmful to national unity, drawing accusations from human rights groups of a new crackdown on free expression in a country where censorship and repression are increasingly common.

The measure makes certain online posts punishable with months of prison time and fines. These include comments “promoting, instigating, aiding, or inciting immorality,” demonstrating ”contempt for religion" or “undermining national unity.”

It also punishes those who publish names or pictures of police officers online and outlaws certain methods of maintaining online anonymity.

The legislation now heads to the Senate — where it is expected to pass — before going to King Abdullah II for final approval.

Lawmakers have argued that the measure, which amends a 2015 cybercrime law, is necessary to punish blackmailers and online attackers.

Prime Minister Bishr al-Khasawneh insisted during Thursday's deliberations that the bill did not run afoul of Jordan's “clear and balanced” constitution, Jordanian media reported.

But opposition lawmakers and human rights groups cautioned that the new law will expand state control over social media, hamper free access to information and penalize anti-government speech.

“This law is disastrous and will lead to turning Jordan into a large prison,” opposition lawmaker Saleh Al-Armoiti said after Thursday’s vote.

In a joint statement ahead of the vote, 14 human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, called the law “draconian.” They said the law's "vague provisions open the door for Jordan’s executive branch to punish individuals for exercising their right to freedom of expression, forcing the judges to convict citizens in most cases.”

The president of Jordan's press association also warned the language could infringe upon press freedom and freedom of speech.

Jordan is a key U.S. ally, seen as an important source of stability in the volatile Middle East.

But ahead of the vote, the U.S. State Department criticized what it said were “vague definitions and concepts” in the law, warning it could "further shrink the civic space that journalists, bloggers, and other members of civil society operate in Jordan.”

The house speaker in parliament said the law was approved by a majority, but a final vote tally was not immediately released.

The measure is the latest in a series of crackdowns on freedom of expression in Jordan. A report by Human Rights Watch in 2022 found that authorities increasingly target protesters and journalists in a “systematic campaign to quell peaceful opposition and silence critical voices.”

All power in Jordan rests with Abdullah II, who appoints and dismisses governments. Parliament is compliant because of a single-vote electoral system that discourages the formation of strong political parties. Abdullah has repeatedly promised to open the political system, but then pulled back due to concerns of losing control to an Islamist surge.

Omar Akour, The Associated Press

Ex-Mossad chief: 'Israeli gov't has let in KKK mentality'

Story by By YONAH JEREMY BOB
• Yesterday
The Jerusalem Post

Tamir Pardo, Former Director of the Mossad attends a press conference at the protest tent of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel against the proposed changes to the legal system, outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, on February 2, 2023.

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo on Thursday framed the government's ongoing judicial overhaul along with actions by some of the more extreme ministers as a process with parallels to the Ku Klux Klan, in an interview with KAN radio.

He said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “taken the Ku Klux Klan and brought them into the government,” equating ministers Itamar Ben Gvir, Betzalel Smotrich and others with the KKK.

Pardo noted that Smotrich had called for “burning down [the Palestinian village of] Huwara. How would this come about?” he asked rhetorically.

“Likud was established as a liberal party. Look at Mahal and look at Smotrich and Ben Gvir,” he warned.

Tamir Pardo, Former Director of the Mossad at the Herzliya Conference, on May 22, 2023. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)

Pardo said that Netanyahu has, "aligned himself with racist and horrible parties and that his political positions are not far from them."

The former Mossad chief stated that if another country was passing some of the laws which the government is passing or working on, Israel would be attacking such countries as antisemitic.

"The leader has lost the northern direction [his moral compass]. None of what has happened would have happened if the prime minister had not led these processes forward," he said.

He dismissed theories that Netanyahu was dragged into the judicial overhaul by other coalition members like Justice Minister Yariv Levin, saying that such persons were merely carrying out Netanyahu's will.

Next, he stated, "the country is being torn into two pieces and the prime minister is not blinking" and that coalition members are expressing happiness," over the defeat of the side that is losing.

Breaking apart the IDF and the Mossad

In addition, he added that Netanyahu was in the process of breaking apart both the IDF and the Mossad.

The former Mossad chief said that through all of his years working for the Mossad and the IDF, he was able to sleep in the midst of dangerous operations situations, but that now he is having trouble sleeping at night out of dread at what will be in store for the country's future.

Moreover, the former Mossad chief said that Netanyahu has promoted a myth that he represents a downtrodden portion of the population which is getting to take back the country from some other ruling party, whereas Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009 with only an 18-month break.

Pardo had some conflicts with Netanyahu over Iran and Palestinian policy when he was director of the Mossad, but mostly kept his disagreements under wraps and carried out the prime minister's orders.

However, since the prime minister's criminal probe got serious and Netanyahu refused to resign, Pardo has been a persistent critic accusing Netanyahu of corruption and of pushing forward the judicial overhaul to allegedly free himself from the criminal trial.

Scientists reveal new dinosaur found in Thailand

Story by Allison Elyse Gualtieri • Yesterday 

Credit: CBSNews

A dinosaur skeleton uncovered by scientists in northeastern Thailand is likely that of a newly discovered species, Minimocursor phunoiensis — and its kind was abundant 150 million years ago on what is now the Khorat Plateau, researchers said.

The skeleton "represents one of the best-preserved dinosaurs ever found in Southeast Asia," scientists said in a paper describing the find published earlier this month.

It is fairly complete from the base of its neck to the base of its tail, said paleontologist Clint Boyd, "including a well-preserved hand, which doesn't happen often in these animals. So it's giving us a lot of information about the early evolution in this group of what we call ornithischian dinosaurs."

These dinosaurs were the precursors to more commonly known dinosaurs such as Triceratops, said Boyd, who manages the paleontology program of the North Dakota Geological Survey.

Most ornithischians, like the newly identified species, were herbivores — plant-eaters — and likely lived in herds. They're named for the resemblance their hips and pelvises have to those of birds, and adults of different ornithischian species ranged from about 2 feet to approximately 50 feet long.

An analysis of the Minimocursor phunoiensis skeleton not only revealed the dino is a new discovery but that it was probably a fast runner. It also wasn't very big — researchers estimated the body length of the skeleton to be 60 centimeters long, or about 2 feet, and said an adult may have been up to 2 meters long, about six and a half feet, based on the length of other leg bones from the species found in the area.

"We usually think of dinosaurs as being these big, large, hulking animals, and this would be something more like a small deer-sized animal today. Not the most flashy animal in the environment, but at the time would have been a fairly common animal out there," he said.

While it likely walked on two feet, Boyd said, it didn't have flashy horns or armor and likely was at the base of the food chain.

Scientists said Minimocursor phunoiensis likely lived during the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. Boyd said the find is exciting because "we don't have a good fossil record, from anywhere in the world, let alone Southeast Asia," from that time period.

The dinosaur, found in the Phu Noi area of the Phy Kradung formation in 2012, is the first to be named for the place scientists said "contains a wealth of specimens." The formation is "one of the richest Southeast Asian non-marine vertebrate bone-beds," according to the paper, and researchers from the Palaeontological Research and Education Centre of Mahasarakham University and the Sirindhorn Museum have been working in the area for a decade.

The specimen, which was more than 50% complete, is now at the university.

Old Crow site will receive heritage designation on July 27

Story by The Canadian Press • Wednesday



One of the earliest trading posts in the territory will receive heritage designation on July 27.

Gindèhchik, also known as Rampart House, is located on the Porcupine River. It long served as a gathering place for Vuntut Gwitchin citizens who hunted and trapped in the area. In the late 1800s, the Hudson’s Bay Company began using it as a trading post.

Rebecca Jensen, manager of Yukon Historic Sites, says Gindèhchik is notable for being an early point of contact between settlers and the First Nation.

“(Here), families interacted with fur traders, explorers, missionaries, government officials, who then really had profound impacts on the livelihood, the wellbeing and the lives of the Gwitchin people and impacts to their culture,” Jensen says.

She says the site is also interesting for its location on the border between Canada and the U.S. It offers an early example of how the relationship between the two countries developed, and how that border impacted the Vuntut Gwitchin, who had always moved freely through the area before artificial borders were imposed.

“After Alaska was purchased, there was a real interest to try and firmly delineate the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, and especially with trying to figure out where the Hudson Bay posts were,” she says.



That led to the creation of one of the first more permanent settler villages, with the site expanding to include a church, rectory and homes for residents such as Archie Linklater, Amos Njootli and more.

Heritage features at the site include a number of standing and collapsed buildings, as well as the outlines of locations where campsites once were.

Jensen says certain buildings have needed more intense restoration work than others, including the log-by-log dismantling and rebuilding of some. Others are being left as relics. All, she says, are stabilized and cared for, so even if they’re not prioritized for full restoration, prevention of further deterioration is key.

Jensen says it’s hard to say how many people visit the site annually because it’s only staffed four weeks out of each year, but people on river trips frequently visit the site.

On July 27, visitors will include people coming by boat and helicopter from both Old Crow, Fort Yukon and Whitehorse.

They’ll attend a signing ceremony for the updated management plan of both Gindèhchik and the nearby Zheh Gwatsàl (LaPierre House). Located on the Bell River, Zheh Gwatsàl already has heritage designation. Both sites are co-owned by the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and the Yukon Government.

Amy Kenny, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Yukon News

DISCOVERY OF CLOVIS PEOPLES IN OLD CROW 

Ruins uncovered near Vatican believed to be Emperor Nero’s theater

"What an artist dies with me!"

Nero, the emperor of Rome from AD 54 until AD 68, reportedly uttered those famous last words before his death in exile. Experts believe he may have left behind evidence of his love of the arts in the form of a theater he built near what today is the Vatican.

An archaeological excavation carried out in the courtyard of the frescoed Palazzo della Rovere has brought to light structures and decorations that experts say could be the remains of that theater.

The archeological site at the Palazzo della Rovere is seen.© Phoebe Natanson/ABC News

Daniela Porro, the special superintendent of Rome, said Wednesday this "exceptional" discovery is believed to be where Nero rehearsed poetry and musical performances, a place mentioned in Roman writings, but until now never located.

Archaeologists have been working on the site since 2020 and say they've found part of the hemicycle-shaped seating section, along with elegant columns in precious and valuable marbles, refined decorations in gold-leaf on stucco and storage rooms for costumes and scenery.

A table with artifacts is seen at the dig site.© Phoebe Natanson/ABC News

The dig, which was carried out in a circumscribed area within the walls of the grand palazzo, situated on Via della Conciliazione, just a few steps from St. Peter's Square, also gifted other rich historical findings. These include the possible remains of the Horti di Agrippina, which is where Caligula built a large circus for horse racing, as well as traces of the production and pilgrimage activities from the medieval age and even artifacts from the 15th century.

MORE: From fossils discovered in Mongolia to 19th century shipwrecks, some of the biggest discoveries of the year

Archaeologists say they're particularly thrilled to have found rare specimens of medieval glass goblets, cooking pots to make bread in, coins, bits of musical instruments and combs made from bone, "tools" used to make rosary beads and small insignia of medieval Christian devotion worn on pilgrims' clothing.

Archeologist and medieval history expert Ilaria de Luca displays items found at the excavation site.© Phoebe Natanson/ABC News

Archaeologist Marzia Di Mento, who is in charge of the dig, says that the findings will take years to study.

"It is a superb dig, one that every archaeologist dreams of…..being able to dig in this built-up historically-rich area is so rare," she told reporters.

Artifacts found at the excavation site are stored in containers.© Phoebe Natanson/ABC News

Archeologists say work is still in progress to study, catalogue and analyze all the findings before the area will be covered over for protection and the grand palazzo and garden restored to its original Renaissance grandeur.

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Part of the building will become a Four Seasons hotel that is expected to open in 2025.

Local officials say the artifacts will be put on display and all the dig's findings put in a city-run public databank to add to the wealth of information gathered over the years on life in Rome throughout the centuries.

Swordfish missing circle-shaped chunks of flesh hauled in by fishers. What bit it?

Fishers hauled in a swordfish (Xiphias gladius) covered in dozens of cookiecutter shark bites.

 Courtesy of TK Walker (screenshot from YouTube)

Fishers in Australia have hauled in a swordfish covered in dozens of strange, circular wounds following a shark "pack attack."

Tony "TK" Walker and his crew were fishing off the northeastern coast in the Coral Sea when they reeled in the large fish and soon identified the wounds as cookiecutter shark bites. 

"The cookie cutter sharks have had a go at this guy," Walker, a former commercial fisher from New Zealand, wrote in a Facebook post on July 19. "Must've been a pack attack, they made more than a snack out of him, that's for sure."

The swordfish (Xiphias gladius) was alive when the fishers hauled it onto their boat, but the bites were oozing blood, and the creature died shortly afterwards. As shown in a video on Walker's YouTube channel, the wounds were fresh, suggesting the attack occurred minutes before the mutilated swordfish was reeled in. 

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Although he regularly catches fish with cookiecutter shark bites, Walker said he'd never seen one so badly mauled. "We see these bites daily and often the fish will have three or four fresh bites and plenty of healed or semi-healed bites," he told Newsweek. But in 40 years of fishing, Walker had "never seen an attack like that."

Cookiecutter sharks (Isistius brasiliensis) are some of the weirdest sharks lurking in the ocean. They are named after their cookie cutter-shaped jaws, which they use to latch onto prey before spinning to scoop out a chunk of flesh, according to the Australian Museum.

These alien-looking sharks only grow to around 20 inches (50 centimeters) long, but they terrorize animals of all sizes, mostly around the coast of Australia and Tasmania. They are known to attack animals much larger than themselves, including great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), whales, orcas (Orcinus orca) and even humans. In 2009, the first and only known cookiecutter shark attack on a human took place off the coast of Hawaii, when a long-distance swimmer was bitten on the chest and left calf. 

"They race in while the fish is cruising along and just bite a chunk of meat out," Walker, who founded the company TK Offshore Fishing, told Newsweek. The sharks then dart off with their prize, leaving their prey no time to react, he added. "I would imagine it would be like mosquitoes buzzing around for the large swordfish and tuna."

Cookiecutter sharks may also lure their prey closer by posing as smaller fish, according to the Australian Museum. Their bellies are dotted with light-producing organs called photophores that make them invisible to creatures swimming below them. Only a dark-pigmented collar that lacks photophores stands out against the light that shines through the water from above, which may look like a little fish to other predators and entice them to attack. The cookiecutter shark then ambushes and latches onto the larger predator to remove a disk of its flesh.