It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Study: Polluted air keeps butterflies, bees from pollinating
By HealthDay News Air pollution prevents bees and butterflies from pollinating flowers, according to new research. File Photo by Betty Shelton/Shutterstock
As air pollution worsens, fruits, flowers and the creatures that pollinate them could pay a price.
That's the takeaway from British researchers who used special equipment to control levels of two common pollutants -- diesel exhaust and ozone -- in a field of black mustard plants, and then monitored pollinating insects over two summers.
"We knew from our previous lab studies that diesel exhaust can have negative effects on insect pollinators, but the impacts we found in the field were much more dramatic than we had expected," said project leader Robbie Girling, an associate professor in agroecology at the University of Reading in the England.
There were up to 70% fewer pollinators to the affected fields up to 90% fewer flower visits and an overall reduction in pollination of up to 31%, according to findings published this week in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Pollution concentrations were between 40% and 50% of levels considered environmentally safe under U.S. regulations, which is far below the actual pollution levels worldwide.
The findings suggest that dirty air reacts with and changes the scent of flowers, making it harder for insects to locate their food -- pollen and nectar.
The researchers said the study is the first to assess how these common pollutants affect pollination in the natural world.
"The findings are worrying because these pollutants are commonly found in the air many of us breathe every day," study author James Ryalls, a research fellow at the University of Reading, said in a university news release.
"We know that these pollutants are bad for our health, and the significant reductions we saw in pollinator numbers and activity shows that there are also clear implications for the natural ecosystems we depend on," Ryalls said.
The findings could have far-reaching implications, because insect pollination is responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in economic value worldwide.
About 70% of all crop species, including apples, strawberries and cocoa, rely on pollination.
Babies identify close relationships by saliva, study suggests
By HealthDay News Researchers said saliva sharing helps babies identify the people who are most likely to look after their needs. Photo by collusor/Pixabay
Sharing food and smooching are two ways babies can suss out whom they can depend on to take care for them, a new study suggests.
The tell-tale clue common to both is a surprising one: saliva.
"Babies don't know in advance which relationships are the close and morally obligating ones, so they have to have some way of learning this by looking at what happens around them," said senior study author Rebecca Saxe, of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For the study, her team observed babies and toddlers as they watched staged interactions between people and puppets. The babies were 8-1/2 to 10 months of age and the toddlers were 16-1/2 to 18-1/2 months old.
In one set of experiments, a puppet shared an orange with one actor, then tossed a ball back and forth with another actor.
After the little ones watched these interactions, researchers watched their reactions when the puppet showed distress while sitting between the two actors.
Based on results of animal studies, they expected the youngsters would look first at the person they expected to help.
Not so. Researchers found the children were more likely to look toward the actor who shared food with the puppet, not the one who shared a toy
In the second set of experiments, which focused on saliva, the actor either placed her finger in her mouth and then into the mouth of the puppet, or placed her finger on her forehead and then, on the puppet's. When the actor later expressed distress while standing between the puppets, children were more likely to look toward the puppet with whom she had shared saliva.
The findings suggest that saliva sharing helps infants learn about social relationships, researchers said. It helps babies identify the people who are most likely to look after their needs.
"The general skill of learning about social relationships is very useful," said lead author Ashley Thomas, a postdoctoral student at MIT. "One reason why this distinction between thick and thin [relationships] might be important for infants in particular, especially human infants, who depend on adults for longer than many other species, is that it might be a good way to figure out who else can provide the support that they depend on to survive."
Researchers plan similar studies with infants in cultures that have different family structures. They also want to use brain imaging to investigate what parts of the adult brain are involved in making saliva-based assessments about social relationships.
The findings were published Thursday in the journal Science.
Marijuana advertising on social media targets kids, study shows
By Dennis Thompson,
HealthDay News Marijuana vendors use discounts and promotions that draw in youths in social media advertising, researcher found. Photo by 7raysmarketing/Pixabay
Some recreational pot shops are using tricks from the old playbooks of alcohol and tobacco companies to target underage users on social media, a new study reports.
Despite state laws restricting such marketing, researchers found marijuana retailers on social media promoting their wares with posts that:
Featured cartoon characters like Snoopy, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Rick and Morty.
Presented store-branded merchandise like caps and T-shirts.
Offered discounts and deals, like a Memorial Day sale or a regular Friday special.
"Those types of restricted content basically come from evidence around ways that tobacco and alcohol companies used to appeal to youth," said lead author Dr. Megan Moreno, division chief of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"For example, discounts and promotions are actually ways to draw in youths to use your products because they're very price-sensitive, and branded content is a way to draw in young people because they want the hats and the T-shirts," she said.
For this study, Moreno and her colleagues decided to examine how pot shops were using social media to market their goods, looking specifically at four of the "early adopter" legalization states: Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska.
"The one remaining Wild West of marketing is still social media, and one of the issues with social media is that these platforms are most highly frequented by youth," Moreno said. "Essentially, we were wondering what's happening in a lightly regulated environment that's populated by youth, and how are cannabis companies leveraging that."
For the study, the researchers evaluated one year of publicly displayed posts on Facebook and Instagram from companies located in the four states.
One piece of good news -- of 80 recreational weed retailers identified by the researchers, only 16 had a presence on both social media sites, and two of those companies deleted their pages during the study period. Researchers wound up with 2,660 posts from 14 businesses. About 35% of the posts featured discounts or promotions, even though such marketing is restricted, the study reported. About 7% of posts used pop culture references 6% featured store-branded products and 6% appealed to youth through the use of cartoon characters.
About 12% of the social media posts also promoted the idea that you should use marijuana products until you're very impaired.
RELATED Marijuana legalization fuels rise in accidental exposure to children, study finds "In alcohol advertising, you don't often see ads that say things like, 'Hey, use our products so you can get drunker. Use our product so you can achieve a better buzz,'" Moreno said. "That's absolutely not allowable in alcohol literature, but we see a lot of that content in the cannabis literature, saying things like 'Use our product to get higher, use our product to reach that higher place we know you want to go' -- really pushing people toward the idea that you should use until you feel impaired."
Linda Richter, vice president of prevention research and analysis with the Partnership to End Addiction, noted that this is all happening in states with "some of the most robust youth protection provisions in their recreational, or adult use, marijuana laws."
Because of that, she said, "the findings are likely quite conservative regarding the extent to which cannabis businesses stray from state marketing restrictions and requirements, such that the actual state of affairs is probably worse and more damaging to teens than reflected in this study."
Richter added that "there's little doubt, based on years of research on tobacco and alcohol advertising and more recent research on marijuana, that advertising and marketing that has youth appeal or that exposes young people to the positive aspects of marijuana have a significant impact on teens' attitudes and behaviors around marijuana use."
Such tactics have been strongly associated in research studies with "reduced perceptions of the risks of marijuana, more acceptance of marijuana use as normal, and more intentions to use marijuana among young people," Richter said.
The social media posts also did a poor job including messages required by law in marijuana marketing, the researchers found. For example, only one-quarter of posts said pot can only be used by those 21 or older, and a similar percentage urged readers to avoid driving impaired.
One problem is that regulations surrounding marijuana marketing vary from state to state, Moreno said. Of the four states, only Alaska and Washington prohibit sales and promotions, for example, while only Washington prohibits store-branded merchandise.
Until recreational pot is legalized at the federal level, it's unlikely that you'll see uniform laws or regulations governing the marketing of these products, said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, an advocacy group promoting reform of marijuana laws.
"Any potential standardization of rules and regulations governing the marketing of cannabis products is likely impossible in a legal environment where cannabis remains federally illegal, thus leaving the creation and imposition of such standards up to the individual states and localities for the foreseeable future," Armentano said.
Moreno said states should consider banning marijuana marketing from social media, considering that youth comprise about 70% of the audience for a site like Instagram.
If not that, she said states ought to require that social media platforms restrict pot marketing to people of legal age.
"The alcohol industry has actually done a fantastic job with this," Moreno said. "If you are on Instagram and you are under 21, you can't even find or access any alcohol content that is put out by alcohol companies. That's called age gating, meaning the content doesn't even appear unless you're of age."
States also could step up enforcement of their existing rules around pot marketing, with stiff fines to discourage violators, she said.
"Many companies and many policymakers are still trying to navigate how to treat social media. I think there's a view that it's not real or not real life or it doesn't really count or that it's ephemeral," Moreno said.
"I think now is a good time for us to think about how pervasive and influential that content is, as we think about the different ways it's touched our life in COVID and politics and all sorts of different ways," she added. "I think it's time to realize that what happens on social media is real life. It's taken us a while as a society to figure out that we can regulate it as real life."
Such regulations are part of the strength of an above-board and legal pot marketplace, Armentano said, adding that NORML supports restrictions that bar ads in public spaces or marketing that targets young people.
"In licit marketplaces, licensed players are motivated to abide by regulations -- such as limitations on the manner with which products may be advertised and marketed -- whereas in illicit unregulated markets, participants are not compelled to play by any rules," he said. "Unlicensed, illicit players have no qualms marketing their products to young people, possess no incentive to check ID for proof of age, and possess few if any motivations to change their behaviors."
Stray bullet kills English astrophysicist visiting Atlanta AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM This undated photo provided by Brookhaven Police Dept. shows Matthew Willson, 31, of Chertsey, Surrey, England, with his girlfriend Katherine Shepard. A stray bullet struck and killed Wilson, an English astrophysicist, while he was inside an Atlanta-area apartment on Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022. Police say the death was the result of “reckless” gunfire by random individuals.
(Brookhaven Police Dept via AP)
BROOKHAVEN, Ga. (AP) — A stray bullet struck and killed an English astrophysicist while he was inside an Atlanta-area apartment, authorities say.
Matthew Willson, 31, of Chertsey, Surrey, England, was visiting his girlfriend in the United States when he was hit by a bullet that pierced the wall of the apartment. The shooting happened early Sunday morning, only three days into his visit.
“He was supposed to be here for three months because we’ve been long distance for a while,” Katherine Shepard, his girlfriend of three years, told WSB-TV. “I picked him up from the airport, took him to his favorite eating location, and the next day, he’s gone.”
Shepard, whose apartment is in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, who told the television station that the couple woke up on Jan. 16 to the sound of more than 30 gunshots coming from an apartment complex directly behind Shepard’s. A bullet traveled through Shepard’s wall, hitting Willson, she said.
“I held him for another 20 minutes while we waited for the ambulance,” she said. “And while we were waiting, there were more gunshots fired.”
Police were in the vicinity pursuing reports of gunfire when the 911 call from Shepard came in. Sgt. Jake Kissel of the Brookhaven criminal investigations division said that once officers arrived at the scene, they rendered aid until paramedics arrived.
“Dr. Willson was transported to a local trauma center where he succumbed to his injuries,” Kissel said in a statement. The shooting appeared to be a “random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge” of firearms.
Willson was being mourned by family, friends and his alma mater, the University of Exeter.
“Matthew Willson was a former PhD student at the University of Exeter and much-loved member of our astrophysics team,” a university spokesman said in a statement.
No arrests have been announced. Brookhaven police have asked for witnesses or anyone with information about the shooting to contact them or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at 404-577-TIPS (8477).
Ex-athlete vows to maintain U. of Michigan sex abuse protest
Jon Vaughn, a former University of Michigan football player speaks in Ann Arbor, Mich., June 16, 2021. A financial payout for more than 1,000 people — mostly men — who say they were sexually assaulted by former University of Michigan sports doctor Robert Anderson is the latest multimillion-dollar settlement involving schools faced with sexual misconduct scandals. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
Jon Vaughn’s small blue-and-white camper has been parked outside the home of the University of Michigan’s president since early October, and he says it won’t be moving anytime soon.
The former star running back for the university’s Wolverines football team says a $490 million settlement the school recently announced is not enough by itself to remedy the sexual abuse he and more than 1,000 other students say they suffered at the hands of the university’s late sports doctor Robert Anderson.
“We’ve only really scratched the surface and touched the tip of the iceberg on how insidious this atrocity is,” Vaughn told The Associated Press on Friday. “That’s why I’m staying. The entire truth has not come out.” Anderson has been accused of molesting students over more than three decades. He worked as director of the university’s Health Service and as a physician for football and other athletic teams from 1966 until his retirement in 2003. He died in 2008.
A camper and tent are shown outside the University of Michigan's Presidents House on campus in Ann Arbor, Mich., Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. A financial payout for more than 1,000 people — mostly men — who say they were sexually assaulted by former University of Michigan sports doctor Robert Anderson is the latest multimillion-dollar settlement involving schools faced with sexual misconduct scandals. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
In 2018, a former athlete made an allegation of sexual abuse against Anderson and police launched an investigation. Then in early 2020, five more former patients lodged accusations against the late doctor. It was then that a spokesman acknowledged that some university employees were aware of accusations against the doctor even prior to 2018.
Vaughn, who played for the Wolverines during the 1988-1990 seasons, said he was given 50 prostate exams by Anderson, the first when he was an 18-year-old freshman in 1988.
During the recruiting process, he said, football coaches knew his mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and passed the information on to Anderson.
“He made the comment, ‘I see you had cancer in your family history,’” and asked, ”‘You have any other relative with cancer?’” Vaughn said. “In that exam, he then raped me digitally for the first time.”
Vaughn said Anderson, the only doctor whom scholarship athletes could see at the university, usually started his exams with noninvasive procedures such as taking his blood pressure and checking his heart.
“Then he would tell you he needed to do a testicular cancer screening and a prostate cancer screening,” the former football player said.
As an athlete you go through exams “’cause you want to get the pass to play,” he said, noting that while at Michigan, he and other players “were in a constant state of being uncomfortable but learning to compartmentalize things to get the job done.”
Vaughn rushed for more than 1,400 yards in two years and nine touchdowns in his final season with the Wolverines. In 1990, he was picked by the New England Patriots in the fifth round of the draft. During a four-year NFL career, he also played for Kansas City and Seattle.
But he said the repercussions of what Anderson subjected him to lingered throughout his pro career and even seeped into his life outside football, namely when it came to taking care of his health.
“You don’t want to go to the dentist” and “you don’t want to go to the doctor” because of trust issues, he said. This fall, he discovered a lump on his neck, and ultimately ended up going to a doctor. It turned out to be cancerous nodules on his thyroid gland.
“I’ve been living with this now for I don’t know how long,” he said Friday morning while heading to surgery to have his thyroid removed. “I realized how long I self-treated things.”
The allegations against Anderson are not the only scandal ensnaring the university. On Jan. 15, the university’s Board of Regents removed Mark Schlissel as school presiden t because of an alleged “inappropriate relationship with a university employee.” Former University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman has been appointed interim president.
Despite his condition, Vaughn said he doesn’t plan to stop protesting the way the university handles sex abuse claims or demanding answers in the Anderson case.
“Michigan built us for this fight,” he said, referring to himself and other former players who say they were abused by Anderson. “They have no idea who we are.”
___
Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan. Householder reported from Canton, Michigan.
Beachgoers congregate on Fort Beach in Cabo Frio, Brazil, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. G.A.S Consulting & Technology, a cryptocurrency investment firm founded by Glaidson Acacio dos Santos, a former waiter-turned-multimillionaire who is the central figure in what is alleged to be one of Brazil’s biggest-ever pyramid schemes, was based in the beach town dos Santos called home.
(AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
CABO FRIO, Brazil (AP) — In April, Brazil’s federal police stormed the helipad of a boutique seaside hotel in Rio de Janeiro state, where they busted two men and a woman loading a chopper with 7 million reais ($1.3 million) in neatly packed bills.
The detainees told police they worked for G.A.S. Consulting & Technology, a cryptocurrency investment firm founded by a former waiter-turned-multimillionaire who is the central figure in what is alleged to be one of Brazil’s biggest-ever pyramid schemes.
Police say the company owned by 38-year-old Glaidson Acácio dos Santos had total transactions worth at least $7 billion ($38 billion reais) from 2015 through mid-2021 as part of a Bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme that promised investors 10% monthly returns.
In hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press, federal and state police and prosecutors accuse dos Santos and his associates of running a sophisticated racket defrauding thousands of small-scale investors who believed they were getting rich off Bitcoin’s steep appreciation. He is now in a Rio jail awaiting trial on charges including racketeering, financial crimes and ordering the murder and attempted murder of two business competitors. He remains under investigation in the attempted murder of a third competitor.
In public statements, dos Santos has repeatedly asserted his innocence. His lawyers didn’t reply to AP requests for comment.
Despite the long list of charges he faces, dos Santos represents an unlikely hero to his fervent supporters. Many view him as a modest Black man whose unorthodox Bitcoin business made them wealthy by gaming a financial system they believe is rigged by wealthy white elites.
The case also underscores the fast-growing appetite for cryptocurrencies in Brazil, where years of economic and political crises have made digital currencies an attractive shield against depreciation of the Brazilian real and double-digit inflation.
Bitcoin fervor was particularly keen in Cabo Frio, the resort town of 230,000 where G.A.S. was based. As G.A.S. revenues rose, enriching early adopters, copycat firms sprang up, seeking to cash in on the craze. A wave of cryptocurrency-related violence soon followed.
With so many alleged pyramid schemes, Cabo Frio came to be known as the “New Egypt.” And as the town’s top dog, dos Santos was dubbed the “Bitcoin Pharaoh.”
Police say dos Santos began trading in Bitcoin after leaving his job as a waiter in 2014. A one-time evangelical preacher in training, he enlisted clients from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Brazil’s largest neo-Pentecostal group, who earned a referral fee for bringing in fresh recruits and kicking back money to G.A.S., police documents say.
In a statement, the Universal Church said it was cooperating with authorities and accused dos Santos of “harassing and recruiting” pastors and their flocks to join his company.
By 2017, dos Santos was starting to make serious money — and attract authorities’ attention. That year his company’s transactions totaled nearly 10 million reais ($1.8 million), 15 times higher than the previous year as money siphoned in and out of his bank accounts from all over Brazil, according to a federal police report. The country’s financial intelligence unit also noticed the company — at the time registered as a restaurant — was regularly trading cryptocurrency on online exchange platforms.
A view of the luxury condominium where former waiter-turned-multimillionaire Glaidson Acacio dos Santos had a home in Cabo Frio. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
The alleged scheme worked like this, according to prosecutors: Dos Santos would instruct clients to deposit their money – in cash to avoid further scrutiny – into bank accounts run by managing partners. The money would then be transferred to dos Santos or his Venezuelan wife, Mirelis Yoseline Diaz Zerpa, who would either pocket it, use it to buy bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies as well as traditional financial assets, or pay off other members of the scheme.
Clients were promised a 10% monthly return on their investments over 12- to 48-month contract periods, but did not own the bitcoins they were told G.A.S. was purchasing with their money. And, they were assured, it was risk-free: They would get their entire initial investment back at the end of the contract.
As Bitcoin fever grew, dos Santos was fast becoming a celebrity in Cabo Frio.
“If he wanted to run for mayor, governor even, he’d win,” said Gilson Silva do Carmo, 52, one of dos Santos’ alleged victims.
The chubby young man in thick-rimmed glasses was also gaining a taste for the high life, police and prosecutors said. Dos Santos bought expensive jewelry and a swanky apartment as contracts poured in from elsewhere in Latin America and as far away as the U.S., Europe and the Gulf.
At the same time, Brazil’s securities regulator was making digital currencies more attractive: It authorized the country’s investment funds to invest in cryptocurrencies in 2018, giving them greater credibility. Last year, Brazil approved Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, only the second country in the world to do so. And Rio de Janeiro has recently said it wants to offer incentives to those paying city property taxes using bitcoins.
Meanwhile, trades in Brazilian reais on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, jumped to nearly $8.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, from just $152 million over the same period a year earlier, according to market data provider Kaiko.
In and around Cabo Frio, where residents had seen their neighbors reap rewards by investing their life savings in G.A.S., many began to fear missing out.
Do Carmo was among them. After catching COVID-19 and struggling to get back to work, he was forced to tap his retirement savings to make ends meet. Gilson Silva do Carmo, an alleged victim of the G.A.S Consulting & Technology, after an interview in Iguaba Grande, Brazil. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
Then his therapist told him he sold his house to invest in G.A.S., and had been receiving 10% monthly returns for a year. Do Carmo invested 40,000 reais ($7,000) — just over half the money left in his retirement fund.
In Cabo Frio, dos Santos’ success inspired other budding entrepreneurs to follow in his footsteps — not to mention those of Charles Ponzi, who died nearby in a Rio de Janeiro hospital charity ward in 1949. The Italian immigrant who engineered one of the largest scams in U.S. history in the 1920s was buried in a public Rio cemetery with his last $75.
Some competitors promised even higher returns than G.A.S. — 20% or more a month.
In mid-April, he discussed with associates how rivals were encroaching on his turf, according to WhatsApp messages intercepted by federal police.
“There’s a trader here in Cabo Frio, Mr. Pessano, who’s going for my clients. I can’t let that happen,” dos Santos wrote.
Less than four months later, on Aug. 4, Wesley Pessano, who advertised himself on social media as a cryptocurrency trader, was shot dead in his Porsche. Police accuse dos Santos of ordering the hit.
Rio state police have also linked two attempted killings to dos Santos and what they called his “extermination team.” On March 20, a trader known as Nilsinho was shot while driving his BMW through Cabo Frio. He was severely injured but survived. Three months later another firm’s operator was targeted, his car hit by 40 bullets; he also survived.
Things came to a head on April 28 when Rio federal police, acting on an anonymous tip, seized the 7 million reais at the helipad of the Insolito Boutique Hotel in Buzios, a short drive from Cabo Frio. A monthslong investigation into dos Santos’ business followed.
On Aug. 25, alerted that dos Santos was planning to flee Brazil, federal police raided more than a dozen locations linked to G.A.S., including dos Santos’ home where he was found with 13.8 million reais ($2.5 million) and taken into custody. Agents also found hard drives containing 10 times that amount in Bitcoin, gold bars, jewelry and several sports cars, including a white Porsche Panamera and an electric blue BMW Z4 convertible. Fort Beach in Cabo Frio. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado) Bathers dive into the waters of Fort Beach in Cabo Frio. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
Sixteen other associates were also charged, including Diaz Zerpa, dos Santos’ 38-year-old wife, who left the country weeks before the raid and is believed to be in Florida, according to authorities. They say she withdrew more than 4,300 bitcoins worth $185 million (1 billion reais). AP attempts to locate her were unsuccessful.
Do Carmo watched in horror as the seizures and arrests unfolded; he had invested the rest of his savings in the company just weeks earlier.
“I thought, ‘My God, what have I done?’” he said. “You watch everything you fought for, your entire life wash away from one moment to the next.”
Still, many early G.A.S. investors who had been receiving regular monthly payments refused to believe dos Santos did anything illegal.
After his arrest, a crowd gathered outside broadcaster TV Globo in Rio de Janeiro to protest coverage of the alleged racket. In October, scores of supporters blocked the street outside a federal courthouse in Rio, demanding his freedom.
Jeferson Brandão, a tax lawyer, G.A.S. investor and vocal advocate of dos Santos, said the company offered an attractive alternative to a banking sector that “only charges you fees.”
G.A.S. offered investors a chance to “take part in the profit,” Brandão said. ”‘Instead of giving you a crumb of the cake, I’m going to give you a slice.’”
From prison, dos Santos has maintained his innocence. In an open letter to investors last month, he blamed the authorities for freezing G.A.S. assets and “prohibiting me from paying you.”
Brazilian law enforcement is still trying to uncover the true size of dos Santos’ empire.
Prosecutors have identified at least 27,000 G.A.S. victims, with operations in at least 13 Brazilian states and seven other countries, including the U.S., United Arab Emirates, the U.K. and Portugal. Lawyer Luciano Regis, 35, during an interview in Sao Pedro da Aldeia, Brazil. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
The true tally is likely much higher, said Luciano Regis, a lawyer representing dozens of victims. He said one of his clients enlisted her husband, mother, brother, sister-in-law and an 82-year-old aunt, investing a total 822,000 reais (about $150,000).
“It’s hard to have a conversation with anyone in Cabo Frio who doesn’t know someone who invested,” he said.
YEMEN
Houthis, aid group: Death toll from prison airstrike hits 82 By SAMY MAGDY
This photo provided by Ansar Allah Media Office, a man is rescued early Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a site in the contested city of Hodeida, Yemen. A Saudi-led airstrike targeting a prison run by Yemen's Houthi rebels killed and wounded detainees on Friday, rescuers said, part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier saw another airstrike take the Arab world's poorest country off the internet. (Ansar Allah Media Office via AP)
CAIRO (AP) — The death toll from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has climbed to at least 82 detainees, the rebels and an aid group said Saturday.
Internet access in the Arab world’s poorest country meanwhile remained largely down as the coalition continued airstrikes on the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, and elsewhere.
The airstrike in the northern Saada province Friday was part of an intense air and ground offensive that marked an escalation in Yemen’s yearslong civil war. The conflict pits the internationally recognized government, aided by the Saudi-led coalition, against the Iranian-backed rebels.
Ahmed Mahat, head of Doctors Without Borders’s mission in Yemen, told The Associated Press his group counted at least 82 dead and more than 265 wounded in the airstrike.
The Houthis’ media office said rescuers were still searching for survivors and bodies in the rubble of the prison site in Saada on the border with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Turki al-Malki said the Houthis hadn’t reported the site as needing protection from airstrikes to the U.N. or the International Committee of the Red Cross. He claimed the Houthis’ failure to do so represented the militia’s “usual deceptive approach” in the conflict.
The Houthis used the prison complex to hold detained migrants, mostly Africans attempting to cross through the war-torn country into Saudi Arabia, according to the humanitarian organization Save the Children.
But Mahat, of Doctors Without Borders, said the airstrike hit a different part of the facility housing other types of detainees, and no migrants were killed.
Al-Malki said reports that the coalition targeted the prison were inaccurate and that the coalition would correspond “facts and details” to the U.N. and the ICRC, according to Saudi state-run television.
The Saada attack followed another Saudi-led coalition airstrike Friday at the Red Sea port city of Hodeida that hit a telecommunications center key to Yemen’s connection to the internet. Access to the internet has remained “largely down for more than 24 hours” in the country, advocacy group NetBlocks said Saturday.
The Saada airstrike, one of the deadliest of the war, was not the first to hit a Houthi-run prison. A September 2019 airstrike hit a detention center the southwestern Dhamar province, killing more than 100 people and wounding dozens.
Rights groups have previously documented that the Houthis placing civilian detention centers near military barracks under constant threat of airstrikes.
Friday’s airstrikes have renewed criticism of the coalition from the United Nations and international aid and rights groups, who just days previous had blasted the Houthis for the attack on the Emirates.
Saudi-led coalition airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing an estimated thousands of civilians according to monitoring groups. The Houthis meanwhile have used child soldiers and indiscriminately laid land mines across the country. They also launched cross-border attacks using ballistic missiles and explosives-laden drones on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The coalition continued its airstrikes on Sanaa and elsewhere Saturday, targeting a Houthi-held military facility and an abandoned headquarters of Yemeni state TV in the capital. The coalition said airstrikes also targeted the Houthis in the contested Harib district in Marib.
And Yemeni forces closely allied with the UAE, known as the Giants Brigades, said they shot down three drones carrying explosives launched by the Houthis on government-held areas in Marib and Shabwa provinces.
The rebels, meanwhile, held a funeral procession in Sanaa for a senior military official killed along with family members in a coalition airstrike last week. Hundreds of Houthi supporters attended the military funeral of Gen. Abdalla Kassem al-Junaid, who headed the Air Academy.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken urged the warring parties to stop the escalation.
“We urge all parties to commit to a peaceful, diplomatic solution to ending the conflict. The Yemeni people deserve to live in peace and determine their own future,” he wrote on Twitter.
The latest escalation comes almost a year after President Joe Biden’s administration announced an end to U.S. support for the coalition and removed the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group as part of American efforts to end the grinding war.
The latest fighting is some of the most intense since the 2018 battle for Hodeida and comes after a year of U.S. and U.N. diplomatic efforts failed to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. On Friday, the U.N. criticized the Houthis for not even allowing the body’s new envoy to visit their territories. Pitched fighting in Marib has remained a major sticking point, as the Houthis attempt to complete their control of the northern half of Yemen.
“The coalition has pulled the stops out to prevent a collapse in Marib and to shift the conflict towards a military equilibrium,” said Peter Salisbury, Yemen expert at the International Crisis Group.
The conflict in the Arab world’s poorest country began in 2014, when the Houthis took Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, forcing the government to flee to the south, then into exile in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi-led coalition, backed at the time by the U.S., entered the war months later to try to restore the government to power.
The conflict has since become a regional proxy war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and fighters. The war also created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, leaving millions suffering from food and medical care shortages and pushing the country to the brink of famine.
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Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
US BACKED SAUDI IMPERIALISTS
'No way to deny': coalition slammed over Yemen prison air raid The Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Huthi rebels has "no way to deny" it carried out air strikes on a prison that killed scores of people, an aid agency has said.
The accusation by Doctors Without Borders comes after the military coalition denied any knowledge of the attack in the Huthi-held northern Yemeni city of Saada, while acknowledging a raid elsewhere.
"There is no way to deny that this is an air strike, everyone in Saada City heard it," an unnamed member of the agency, known by its French initials MSF, was quoted as saying in a statement late on Saturday
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Sophie RAMIS Map of Yemen locating Hodeida and Saada
"I live one kilometre (half a mile) from the prison and my house was shaking from the explosions."
The attack overnight on Friday created horrific scenes, with bombed-out buildings littered with bodies and hospitals overwhelmed.
Rescuers continue to claw through the rubble searching for survivors, MSF said.
The Iran-backed Huthis' health ministry said 82 people were killed and 266 wounded, the agency said. There was no independent confirmation of the figures.
The Saudi-led coalition -- which is backed by arms sales by countries including the United States, Britain and France -- has dismissed claims it was responsible as "baseless and unfounded".
But it did report strikes a few hours earlier on the Red Sea port city of Hodeida that knocked out Yemen's internet, complicating rescue efforts and compounding problems for the impoverished country. - 'Terrible effects' -
"This is the latest in a long line of unjustifiable air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition on places like schools, hospitals, markets, wedding parties and prisons," said Ahmed Mahat, MSF head of mission in Yemen.
"Since the beginning of the war we have frequently witnessed the terrible effects of indiscriminate coalition bombing on Yemen, including when our own hospitals have been attacked."
MSF said its staff had confirmed the prison in Saada, the rebels' northern home base, was destroyed, and that a nearby hospital had run out of beds to treat the wounded.
"The hospital is facing a very difficult situation... with casualties lying on the floor," a staff member was quoted as saying.
The attacks marked a rapid escalation of hostilities after a drone and missile strike on the United Arab Emirates -- which is part of the coalition -- killed three in the capital Abu Dhabi last Monday.
Yemen's civil war began in 2014 when the Huthis seized the capital Sanaa, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene to prop up the government the following year.
Rights groups have long criticised the coalition for civilian casualties in its aerial bombardment.
According to the Yemen Data Project, an independent tracker, there have been almost 9,000 civilian casualties from coalition air raids since 2015.
The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly and left millions on the brink of famine, according the UN which calls it the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe.
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Coalition denies Yemen prison air strike that killed 70 Coalition denies Yemen prison air strike that killed 70An image grab from video made available by Yemen's Huthis shows what the rebels say is the prison destroyed by the attack on Saada (AFP/-)
Sat, January 22, 2022, 3:16 AM·3 min read
The Saudi-led coalition on Saturday denied carrying out an air strike on a prison in Yemen's rebel-held north that aid groups said killed at least 70 people, including migrants, women and children.
Claims the coalition ordered the raid, which reduced buildings to rubble and left rescuers scrabbling for survivors with their bare hands, were "groundless", the alliance said. The attack, which coincided with a coalition strike on the Yemeni port of Hodeida that killed three children and knocked out the impoverished country's internet, was condemned by UN chief Antonio Guterres.
But "these claims adopted by the militia are baseless and unfounded", said coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki, referring to the Iran-backed rebels.
This week has witnessed a dramatic upswing in the conflict that has already killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions, creating what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The rebels took the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting the Saudi-led intervention -- supported by the US, France and Britain -- in March 2015. It was intended to last just a few weeks.
The latest violence came after the Huthi rebels on Monday claimed their first deadly attack on Abu Dhabi, capital of coalition partner the United Arab Emirates, taking the conflict into a new phase.
The drone and missile attack, which killed three people, was the first deadly assault the UAE has acknowledged inside its borders, and prompted threats of reprisals. - 'Horrific act of violence' -
The internet blackout, which went into its second day on Saturday according to web monitor NetBlocks, complicated rescue work and media reporting as information slowed to a trickle.
"The nation-scale internet disruption in Yemen is ongoing with no indication of recovery," NetBlocks said.
Unverified footage released by the Huthis revealed gruesome scenes at the bombed-out prison facility, as rescue workers scrambled to dig out bodies and mangled corpses were placed in piles.
Eight aid agencies operating in Yemen said in a joint statement that the prison in Saada, the rebels' home base, was used as a holding centre for migrants, who made up many of the casualties.
They said they were "horrified by the news that more than 70 people, including migrants, women and children, have been killed... in a blatant disregard for civilian lives".
Hospitals were overwhelmed as hundreds of casualties flooded in, aid workers said.
"It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence," said Ahmed Mahat, Doctors Without Borders' head of mission in Yemen.
Meeting on Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the "heinous terrorist attacks" on Abu Dhabi, but the council's Norwegian presidency also denounced the strikes on Yemen.
In a later statement, the UN chief reminded "all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law". - 'Destruction of the country' -
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for "all parties to the conflict to de-escalate" and "abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law".
Iran on Saturday also condemned recent air strikes on Huthi-held areas, warning they have "made the path to achieve a just peace in the country even more difficult," foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.
Saudi Arabia accuses regional rival Iran of providing military support to the Huthis, especially missiles and rockets, claims that Tehran denies.
Khatibzadeh said there was a lack of "serious determination to advance the political settlement of the Yemeni crisis", warning it would lead to the "destruction of the country and instability in the region".
The Huthis have warned foreign companies to leave the "unsafe" UAE, a veiled threat of revenge attacks after Friday's strikes.
"We advise the foreign companies in Emirates to leave because they invest in an unsafe country and the rulers of this country continue in their aggression against Yemen," warned Huthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree.
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‘Stop Right There!’: Foley recalls epic duet with Meat Loaf By JOCELYN NOVECK and KRISTIN M. HALL
This photo provided by Karjaka Studios shows Ellen Foley. Foley, who collaborated with Meat Loaf on the hit single "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" from his 1977 hit album "Bat Out of Hell," is paying tribute to their "beautiful, feisty, joyful friendship." Meat Loaf died Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022 at age 74. (Aleksandr Karjaka/Karjaka Studios via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — “Stop Right There!” Three words of warning — and three words that Ellen Foley credits with launching her career in music.
It was Foley who belted out the words to Meat Loaf about halfway through their eight-and-a-half minute duet “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” the epic seduction song on his mega-selling 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” album.
Foley is now looking back on the singular experience of making the memorable song as she recalls Meat Loaf and a “beautiful, feisty, joyful friendship” that began in her early 20s. Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday, died on Thursday at 74.
He was the most unlikely of rock superstars, Foley says.
“I mean, that’s the wild thing,” she said in an interview Friday, when asked to explain the source of his fame. “Who would have thought that at the end of the ’70s, this 300-pound-plus guy would be a star? But that’s what it was. He was a character, you know, larger than life.”
But, she says, he came at the right time.
“People were ready for this. People were ready to come out of the laid-back Fleetwood Mac ’70s. And he had an extraordinary voice. I don’t know if he ever took a voice lesson — I think he came out pretty fully formed. First time I ever saw him walk into a rehearsal hall, he was Meat Loaf. He knew what he was.”
It was in the ’70s that Foley met Meat Loaf, when the two of them were driving around in a blue van, touring with a National Lampoon comedy show. “We got very close,” she said. “You’re on the road, you’re feeling lonely and there are just people you gravitate to.”
She describes him, as others have, as rather a man-child. “I’m not saying that derogatorily,” she noted. “But I think all the women in his life probably ended up sort of caring for him.”
“Bat Out of Hell,” a collaboration with songwriter Jim Steinman and producer Todd Rundgren, overcame mixed reviews to become, via aggressive touring, one of the top-selling albums in history, with worldwide sales of more than 40 million copies.
“I think it was sold off of live performance,” Foley said of the 1977 album. “They toured the heck out of it and people saw him, and were just blown away and bought the record.” And, of course, there was “the wonder of Meat Loaf,” she added. “He was a wonder, truly.”
As for their “Paradise” duet — about two kids “doubly blessed” because they were “barely 17” and “barely dressed” — people never stopped talking to Foley about it.
“It’s got an unbelievable mythology around it,” she said, noting that people often tell her they lost their virginity to the song. “Which makes sense,” she said. “They were following the script.” (The song included baseball announcer Phil Rizzuto giving a play-by-play about rounding the bases and sliding into home. Rizzuto later said he didn’t realize it was a metaphor.)
But Foley says people also recite a litany of other occasions when they’ve pulled out the song, telling her: “‘I did it at karaoke, at my wedding, at my high school reunion, at my bar mitzvah.’”
“It’s kind of incredible,” she said.
Indeed, Foley says, she sometimes feels like an astronaut, looking back on the big moonshot that defined a career.
“You do one thing and it goes with you for your whole life,” she said, “and it makes you always connected, and it makes you feel as young as you did when you sang that song — or went to the moon.”
In fact, though, Foley, now 70, was only beginning a long career as both an actor and singer.
She later originated the role of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” in San Diego, and on TV starred for a season in “Night Court.” She’s recorded a number of solo albums and last year released her fifth, “Fighting Words.” She continues to perform and to teach.
But this week, Foley is remembering the friend she simply calls Meat, whom she last saw when they collaborated on his 2016 album, “Braver Than We Are.”
“Meat brought me into the consciousness of the rock ‘n’ roll world,” she wrote on Facebook, “and through ‘Paradise By the Dashboard Light,’ I get to be a horny teenager for all time. Meat: I will love you forever.”
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Hall reported from Nashville, Tennessee.
THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES
Grill company apologizes after sending meatloaf recipe on same day of rock star's death
Grill maker company Weber offered up a recipe on how to make “BBQ Meat Loaf” in an email on Friday, before realizing the message coincided with the death of actor and rock legend Meat Loaf, The Associated Press reported. “At the time we shared this recipe with you, we were not aware of the unfortunate passing of American singer and actor Mr. Marvin Lee Aday, also known as Meat Loaf,” Weber said in a followup message, according to the news outlet. “We want to express our deepest apologies for this oversight and for any offense this email may have caused.”
Earlier this week, the actor and musician died at the age of 74. Meat Loaf, whose real name is Marvin Lee Aday, appeared in 65 films including “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Fight Club,” “Wayne’s World” and “Focus.”
Aday also spent a season on former President Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality TV show and sold tens of millions of albums as a rock artist.
“We know how much he meant to so many of you and we truly appreciate all of the love and support as we move through this time of grief in losing such an inspiring artist and beautiful man,” a statement posted to his Facebook account read following the announcement of his death.
“We thank you for your understanding of our need for privacy at this time. From his heart to your souls…don’t ever stop rocking!”
