Meet Perseverance: Mars rover gets name ahead of July launch
March 5, 2020

In this image released by NASA, Alex Mather, the student whose submission, Perseverance, was chosen as the official name of the Mars 2020 rover, reads his essay entry, Thursday, March 5, 2020, at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Va. (Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s next Mars rover finally has a name. Perseverance, a six-wheeled robotic explorer, will blast off this summer to collect Martian samples for eventual return to Earth.

The name was suggested by Alex Mather, a Virginia seventh-grader, as part of a naming contest for U.S. schoolchildren. The U.S. space agency announced it Thursday at Alex’s school in Burke, Virginia, and he got to read his winning essay live on NASA TV.

“We are a species of explorers and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere,” Alex wrote. “We, not as a nation, but as humans, will not give up. The human race will always persevere into the future.”

NASA’s associate administrator for science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen, noted that the space agency’s Curiosity rover has been roaming around Mars since 2012, when Alex and his classmates were babies or little kids.

In this Dec. 17, 2019 photo made available by NASA, engineers watch the first driving test for the Mars 2020 rover in a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. On Thursday, March 5, 2020, NASA announced the explorer's name will be "Perseverance." (J. Krohn/NASA via AP)

“Perseverance and curiosity together are what exploration is all about,” he said.

Nearly 4,700 volunteer judges had narrowed a pool of 28,000 contest entries down to 155 semifinalists. Once it was down to nine finalists, the public was invited to vote online.

Mather and his family won a trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch Perseverance get launched into space in July. The boy became enamored with space at age 11 while attending Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. That’s when video games took a back seat. He said he wants to become an engineer and work for NASA.

The rover is undergoing final preparations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The nameplate will be on the rover’s robot arm and serve as a protective rock guard.

In this Dec. 17, 2019 photo made available by NASA, engineers watch the first driving test for the Mars 2020 rover in a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. On Thursday, March 5, 2020, NASA announced the explorer's name will be "Perseverance." (J. Krohn/NASA via AP)

Boeing hit with 61 safety fixes for astronaut capsule

FILE - In this Dec. 22, 2019 file photo, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft jettisons its heat shield before it lands in White Sands, N.M., after an aborted test flight to the International Space Station. On Friday, Feb. 6, 2020, NASA said Boeing faces 61 safety corrective actions following the unsuccessful December test. (Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via AP)


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Boeing faces 61 safety fixes following last year’s botched test flight of its Starliner crew capsule, NASA said Friday.

NASA has also designated December’s aborted space station mission as a serious “high-visibility close call” that could have destroyed the capsule — twice.

In releasing the outcome of a joint investigation, NASA said it still has not decided whether to require Boeing to launch the Starliner again without a crew, or go straight to putting astronauts on board.

Douglas Loverro, NASA’s human exploration and operation chief, told reporters that Boeing must first present a plan and schedule for the 61 corrective actions. Boeing expects to have a plan in NASA’s hands by the end of this month.


Loverro said the space agency wants to verify, among other things, that Boeing has retested all the necessary software for Starliner.

“At the end of the day, what we have got to decide is ... do we have enough confidence to say we are ready to fly with a crew or do we believe that we need another uncrewed testing,” Loverro said.

Boeing’s Jim Chilton, a senior vice president, said his company is ready to repeat a test flight without a crew, if NASA decides on one.

“’All of us want crew safety No. 1,” Chilton said. “Whatever testing we’ve got to do to make that happen, we embrace it.”

Loverro said he felt compelled to designate the test flight as a “high-visibility close call.” He said that involves more scrutiny of Boeing and NASA to make sure mistakes like this don’t happen again.

Software errors not only left the Starliner in the wrong orbit following liftoff and precluded a visit to the International Space Station but they could have caused a collision between the capsule and its separated service module toward the end of the two-day flight. That error was caught and corrected by ground controllers just hours before touchdown.

“We could have lost a spacecraft twice during this mission,” Loverro said.

Engineers are still analyzing an unrelated communication problem that prevented flight controllers from getting commands to the capsule.

NASA hired Boeing and another private company, SpaceX, to develop capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

SpaceX is on track to launch astronauts this spring. It would mark the first time Americans have rocketed into orbit from home soil since NASA’s last space shuttle flight in 2011. The space agency has been buying seats on Russian rockets in the interim

Arab voters key to blocking Netanyahu-led hard-line majority

March 6, 2020

In this Thursday, March 5, 2020 photo, Israeli Arab Fadila Maha walks past an election campaign poster showing Israeli Politician Ahmad Tibi of the Joint List in Tira, Israel. A surge in Arab voter turnout was key to depriving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nationalist allies of a parliamentary majority in this week’s Israeli election. Undercutting Netanyahu’s ambitions was celebrated as sweet payback in the nearly 2 million-strong minority that the hard-line leader had relentlessly tried to tarnish as disloyal to the state. The Arabic reads "I sit with you." (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

TIRA, Israel (AP) — A surge in Arab voter turnout was key to depriving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nationalist allies of a parliamentary majority in this week’s Israeli election.

Undercutting Netanyahu’s ambitions was celebrated as sweet payback in the nearly 2 million-strong minority that the hard-line leader had relentlessly tried to tarnish as disloyal to the state.

An Arab-led alliance of parties is sending more lawmakers than ever to the new parliament, giving them unprecedented leverage to deliver results for their constituents and potentially transform Israel’s electoral politics for years to come.

Looking to galvanize his nationalist base, Netanyahu lambasted Arab lawmakers during the campaign as terrorist sympathizers who advocated for Palestinian interests and were a danger to the country. But the harsh rhetoric, coupled with concern over President Donald Trump’s Mideast plan and other legislation deemed discriminatory, seems to have backfired by energizing Arab voters.

“He’s a little racist and talked trash about Arabs, Arabs, Arabs. He talked dirty, and we showed him what Arabs can do,” Mahmoud Hazkiya, a 31-year-old salesman in the central Israeli town of Tira, said with a smile. “Arabs are interested now, and we are not getting what we deserve.”

Breaking out of years of political apathy, nearly 65% of Israel’s Arab citizens voted in Monday’s election — up from 59% in the September vote and 49% last April. It marked the highest Arab turnout since 1999.

With mergers among the Jewish-led leftist parties leaving their Arab candidates out of reasonable slots for parliament, Arabs rallied around the Joint List, with 88% casting their ballots for the umbrella group.

Together with a projected 20,000 Jewish votes, the list surged to an all-time high of 15 seats, emerging as the third largest party in parliament, trailing only Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue and White. More significantly, it secured a 62-58 majority for the anti-Netanyahu forces in parliament and blocked Netanyahu, who had initially declared a “great victory” after Monday’s vote, from establishing the hawkish government he wanted.

“The Joint List is here. The Arab public is here. We forced everyone — because of our power, because of our public that granted us power — to treat us as an important and decisive factor,” lawmaker Ahmad Tibi told Israel’s Army Radio Thursday. He said the two additional seats picked up by the Joint List from September’s election prevented Benjamin Netanyahu from getting a 61-seat majority.

Tibi featured prominently in Netanyahu’s campaign as a symbol of the supposed illegitimate partners that Gantz would need for a coalition. Likud’s main campaign slogan was: “Without Tibi, Gantz has no government.” Tibi gleefully noted that it was now Netanyahu who had no government without Tibi.

Even so, he refrained from endorsing Gantz for prime minister after the former military chief ruled out a partnership with the Joint List. If Gantz and the Joint List can’t resolve their differences, Israel could be looking at the prospect of a fourth consecutive election later this year.

Israel’s Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of the country’s 9 million citizens, have largely been marginalized politically since the founding of the state in 1948.

The Jewish establishment, leery of including those it perceived as identifying with the country’s adversaries, kept Arab-led parties out of government. Arab leaders also insisted they had no interest in joining a government for fear of legitimizing Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian areas or being perceived as condoning military operations against their Palestinian brethren.

But a younger generation more comfortable with a dual Israeli-Arab identity and demanding solutions to everyday domestic issues has been far more eager to have a voice.

Polls show an overwhelming majority of Arab citizens want their leaders to focus more on reducing crime, improving infrastructure and addressing a housing crunch and discrimination rather than focusing exclusively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Yes, there is a connection to the Palestinians. But at the end of the day we live in a country where you need to take care of yourself and then you can take care of others,” said 33-year-old Zidan Hazkiya, the salesman’s cousin. “We need a good future for our children: employment, education and many other things to move forward in life.”

In Tira, a town of 25,000 people known for their warm relations with nearby Jewish communities, the 72.5% turnout was even higher than the national average. More than 96% of the votes went to the Joint List.

Part of the motivation derived from deep-seated anger over a law passed by Netanyahu’s government in 2018 that declared Israel to be the nation-state of the Jewish people and which Arabs believe codifies discrimination. Another was the suggestion in Trump’s recent Mideast plan that densely populated Arab communities in Israel be added to a future Palestinian state.

But mostly it seems to reflect the Arab minority’s increasing desire to take a more active role in shaping the country.

“The more seats we get, the more power we will have,” said Fadila Maha, a 48-year-old mother of five. “God willing, if there are elections again they will get not 15, but 20.”

Arik Rudnitzky, an expert on Arab society at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, said the unified message by the Joint List’s different factions played a key part in convincing Arabs their votes would matter.

“There was optimism in the air. They felt that their representatives aren’t busy with their own rivalries and were concentrated on one goal,” he explained. “The public wanted to prove that ‘we are citizens of the state and you cannot just treat us as temporary or tentative citizens.’”

They still have a long way to go. On Wednesday, Netanyahu all but said their votes don’t count when it comes to the tricky arithmetic of resolving Israel’s third inconclusive election in less than a year. Scrawling his analysis of the election results on a board, he jotted down 58 seats for what he called the “Zionist right” and 47 for the “Zionist left.”

The Joint List, he said, “is obviously not part of this equation.”

But even that slight didn’t damper enthusiasm on the Arab street after their historic achievement.

“We voted for change,” said Amir Abu-Het, a 39-year-old restaurant manager. “Netanyahu is more of the same, but now we have more power to move forward.”

AP Explains: Militant fighters in final battle in Syria

YOU CAN'T TELL THE PLAYERS WITHOUT A PROGRAMME

FILE - In this frame grab from video taken on Dec. 20, 2019, militants of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham try to disperse people who have gathered at the Bab al-Hawa border gate to protest the ongoing bombing campaign in Syria's rebel-controlled Idlib province by the government and its Russian ally. Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government's assault militants who came from around the world to take part in the country's civil war. (AP Photo, File)

on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other
BEIRUT (AP) — Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government’s assault on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other militants who came from around the world to take part in the country’s civil war.

These hardened fighters have nowhere left to go as the war reaches an endgame in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib on the Turkish border. Like the civilians they terrorized for years, they are trapped in an ever-shrinking territory under constant bombardment by the Russian-backed offensive by the government of President Bashar Assad.


The militants are a mix of home-grown fighters and the foreign jihadis who began converging to Syria after the 2011 uprising against Assad turned into an armed insurgency. The influx made Syria one of the main centers for militants worldwide, described by a top U.S. envoy as the largest al-Qaida haven since Osama bin Laden’s days in Afghanistan.

Idlib is believed to have more than 50,000 fighters, including the hard-core militants as well as tens of thousands of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, most of them with Islamic fundamentalist ideologies. In the past few years, the Syrian government struck safe passage deals with rebels as it took back control of areas around the country. As a result, rebels from elsewhere flowed into Idlib, their last stronghold. The current Russian-backed government offensive now aims to capture Idlib and crush the rebellion for good.

Here’s a look at the militants and their options:
FILE - This undated file photo released by a militant group in 2016, shows Abu Mohammed al-Golani of the militant Levant Liberation Committee and the leader of Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, second right, discussing battlefield details with field commanders over a map, in Aleppo, Syria. Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government's assault on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other militants who came from around the world to take part in the country's civil war. (Militant UGC via AP, File)

THE MAIN GROUPS

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, is by far the strongest militant group in Idlib, affiliated with al-Qaida. Also known as HTS, the group is led by Syrian commander and al-Qaida operative Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

The powerful HTS has militarily crushed many of its rivals within the opposition, carried out a crackdown against the civilian population and set up its own so-called “salvation government” in 2017 to run day-to-day affairs in the region.

HTS evolved from the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, which rebranded itself and changed names on several occasions, claiming it had cut its links with al-Qaida.

In February 2018, as HTS became more Syrian, most of its foreign members set up their own group known as Horas al-Din, Arabic for “Guardians of Religion.” That group is now largely seen as the main al-Qaida branch in Syria and takes a hardline stance, rejecting a political solution for the war.


Most of its fighters are deployed in the rugged mountains of Idlib where they could take shelter amid the offensive.

Idlib is also home to the Turkistan Islamic Party, largely made up of thousands of Chinese jihadis. Most are from the Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uighur community native to Xinjiang in China. Their main presence is in and near the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour on the edge of Latakia, an Assad stronghold.

Overall, as many as 8,000 foreign militants have been estimated to be in Idlib.

The National Front for Liberation is a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel coalition, formed in 2018, which has played a major role in fighting government forces in Idlib. The group, made up of 16 factions, includes Islamic fundamentalist fighters believed to be more moderate than those of al-Qaida-linked groups. One of the strongest factions is Failaq al-Sham, funded and armed by Turkey. They later became part of the Turkey-backed coalition known as the Free Syrian Army.

FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 file photo, provided by an anti-Bashar Assad activist group Edlib News Network (ENN), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, rebels from al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, sit on a truck full of ammunition at Taftanaz air base, that was captured by the rebels in Idlib province, northern Syria.Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government's assault on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other militants who came from around the world to take part in the country's civil war. (Edlib News Network ENN via AP, File)

DISARM OR DIE

As the noose tightens around Idlib, most of the militants have no choice but to fight till the end and die. Some will try to blend in with the civilian population — although foreign fighters will have difficulty doing that.

Opposition activists in the region say local Syrian fighters have already begun separating themselves from the foreigners. A number of foreign jihadis have split away from locals and moved into mountainous areas, said Akram al-Ahmad, a Syrian opposition activist who spends much of his time in Idlib.

Al-Golani, the HTS commander, gave a rare interview in late January to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in which he presented HTS as a local Syrian group independent of al-Qaida’s chain of command “with a strictly Syrian, not a transnational, Islamist agenda.”

“Abu Mohammed al-Golani is a pragmatic person who comes from a generation of al-Qaida that tried to shift into local politics, contrary to al-Qaida ideology that tends to be international and has no borders,” said Wael Olwan, a former spokesman for a Syrian rebel group who now works as a researcher at the Turkish-based think tank Jusoor for Studies.

DISPERSE IN THE WORLD

As the Syrian government offensive pushes civilians toward the border with Turkey, analysts say that some foreign militants might try to cross the border into Turkey and from there move on to other parts of the world to carry out attacks for al-Qaida.

Sam Heller, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that if the government offensive moves all the way to the Turkish border, chaotic scenes might unfold as large numbers of civilians try to escape. Militants could then exploit such chaos to slip away.

“A military offensive on Idlib risks driving these militants into Turkey, and then dispersing them globally, including to Europe and the post-Soviet space,” Heller said.

“At that point, some of these more experienced foreign cadres could link up with militants elsewhere and serve as an accelerant for local jihadist violence,” he said.

FILE - In this file photo posted on the Twitter page of Syria's al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on March 28, 2015, a fighter from Syria's al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front holds his group flag as he stands in front of the governor building in Idlib province, north Syria. Intermingled among 3 million civilians under siege in the Syrian government's assault on the last opposition stronghold are tens of thousands of al-Qaida-linked fighters and other militants who came from around the world to take part in the country's civil war. (Al-Nusra Front Twitter page via AP, File)

Great Barrier Reef enters crucial period in coral bleaching

FILE - This Sept. 10, 2001, file photo shows Agincourt Reef, located about 30 miles off the coast near the northern reaches of the 1,200-mile long Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is facing a critical period of heat stress over the coming weeks following the most widespread coral bleaching the natural wonder has ever endured, scientists said Friday, March 6, 2020.(AP Photo/Randy Bergman, File)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Great Barrier Reef is facing a critical period of heat stress over the coming weeks following the most widespread coral bleaching the natural wonder has ever endured, scientists said Friday.

David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the government agency that manages the coral expanse off northeast Australia, said ocean temperatures over the next month will be crucial to how the reef recovers from heat-induced bleaching.

“The forecasts ... indicate that we can expect ongoing levels of thermal stress for at least the next two weeks and maybe three or four weeks,” Wachenfeld said in a weekly update on the reef’s health.

“So this still is a critical time for the reef and it is the weather conditions over the next two to four weeks that will determine the final outcome,” he said.

Ocean temperatures across most of the reef were 0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the March average.

In parts of the marine park in the south close to shore which avoided the ravages of previous bleachings, ocean temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above average.

The authority has received 250 reports of sightings of bleached coral due to elevated ocean temperatures during an unusually hot February.

The 345,400-square kilometer (133,360-square mile) World Heritage-listed colorful coral network has been devastated by four coral bleaching events since 1998. The most deadly were the most recent, in consecutive summers in 2016 and 2017.

Scientists fear the latest coral death rate could match those events.

“At the moment, it’s definitely the most extensive bleaching event we’ve ever had,” U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch scientist William Skirving said Friday.

“It’s certainly an end-to-end bleaching event with severe bits at each end and it’s not looking good for the southern end, but it really depends on the weather in the next two weeks,” he said.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a scientist from the Australian Research Council Center for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies, said how much of the bleached coral would recover and how much would die would not be known for weeks.

“I’m very worried about the situation given how warm the temperatures are on the Great Barrier Reef and what the projections are,” Hoegh-Guldberg said.

“If it cools down a bit, they’ll recover or, if not, we may head off into something not too different from 2016 and 2017. We’re right at the fork in the road,” he added.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority last year downgraded its outlook for the corals’ condition from “poor” to “very poor” due to warming oceans.

Its latest report, which is updated every five years, found the greatest threat to the reef remained climate change. The other threats are associated with coastal development, land-based water runoff and human activity such as illegal fishing.

IT'S AN ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY

Utah man found in freezer exonerated wife of death with note

TOOELE, Utah (AP) — A Utah man whose body was found in a freezer exonerated his wife by leaving a typed, notarized note saying she bore no responsibility in his death.

The note left by Paul Edward Mathers cleared the late Jeanne Souron-Mathers, although questions remain, authorities said.

“I want it known that Jeanne is in NO way responsible for my death,” Mathers wrote in the letter notarized Dec. 2, 2008.

“I am fully aware that with my heart conditio(n) the Lortabs/Hydrocodine will eventually stop my heart,” Mathers’ wrote. “It will not be deliberate as I am not ready to leave my wife, Jeanne Marie. Jeanne has foiled my actual suicide attempts.”


A maintenance worker found the deceased 75-year-old woman in her Tooele home Nov. 22. The state medical examiner ruled she died of natural causes.

As police searched for clues about her death, they discovered Mathers’ body in a freezer.

Mathers had terminal cancer. Police were unable to conclude if his illness was the ultimate cause of death. Investigators believe he died sometime between Feb. 4, 2009, and March 8, 2009.

Mathers’ head was wrapped in a garbage bag that was secured with duct tape around his neck. Authorities could not determine if the bag was placed there before or after his death.

Whether anyone else was involved in putting Mathers’ body in the freezer also remains unanswered.

Many of those with direct knowledge of what happened have died, while other challenges in collecting information and evidence have left police resigned to end the investigation without a definitive conclusion, Tooele Police Sgt. Jeremy Hansen said.

“We are never going to have final answers,” Hansen said.

Heavy police raids leave east Jerusalem neighborhood on edge

FILE - In this June 28, 2019 file photo, Israeli police arrest a Palestinian during clashes the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, a day after a Palestinian was shot and killed by police during a protest in the same neighborhood. Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into Issawiya in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10, on suspicion of stone-throwing. The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs. Residents and human rights groups say the provocative raids have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Murad Mahmoud’s 14-year-old son has been detained by Israeli police in his east Jerusalem neighborhood three times in the last two years. His 10-year-old has been interrogated by police in combat gear. These days, he keeps all six of his children inside most of the time, fearing even worse.
“I won’t even let them go to the corner store,” he says. “I’m not just afraid they’ll be arrested, I’m afraid they’ll lose an eye or get shot in the head.”

Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in east Jerusalem in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10 — on suspicion of stone-throwing.

The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs, which police say justifies their heightened presence.


But residents and human rights groups say the raids themselves seem intended to provoke confrontations and have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside. Last month, a 9-year-old boy was shot in the face by police, losing an eye in an incident authorities say they are still investigating.

It’s unclear what prompted the crackdown, but many residents feel police are making an example out of Issawiya so that Israel can cement its control over east Jerusalem, which it seized in the 1967 war and later annexed.

East Jerusalem Palestinians have Israeli residency, but few have accepted citizenship, either because they don’t recognize Israeli control or because of the long and complicated application process. That has left many feeling vulnerable.

“From May of last year until today, every day they occupy Issawiya all over again,” said Amin Barakat, an optometrist and a member of the neighborhood council.

Issawiya tumbles down a hillside behind Israel’s Hebrew University, just a few miles (kilometers) from the city-center. But like other Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem it is overcrowded and poorly served, a legacy of decades of Israeli policies favoring Jewish areas of the city, including east Jerusalem settlements. Under President Donald Trump’s Mideast initiative, which strongly favors Israel and was rejected by the Palestinians, Issawiya would remain part of Israel’s capital.

The narrow streets wind past walls covered in graffiti supporting Hamas and other armed groups, and residents take pride in their Palestinian identity. But many work in Jewish communities. They say the graffiti is the work of local teenagers, and there’s no evidence any factions have an organized presence in the neighborhood.

The intensive raids began last May, but the situation escalated the following month, when a 20-year-old was shot and killed by police, who said he approached to within a few meters (yards) and launched fireworks at them.

The police say they treat Issawiya like any other Jerusalem neighborhood.

“There’s no use of unnecessary force,” Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. “There’s no unnecessary patrols that are taking place. Everything is carefully calculated based on what is taking place inside Issawiya.”

He said forces have responded to stone-throwing on nearby roads, including a major highway, but he was unable to name any specific act of violence outside of the clashes with police inside Issawiya.

Residents angrily reject any suggestion they pose a threat to others.

“For 19 years I’ve been working with Jews,” said Mahmoud, a construction manager. “They welcome me into their homes. ... I have more than a hundred Jewish clients. I only have problems here in my home.”

Rights groups say the raids go far beyond the targeting of individual suspects and amount to collective punishment of the neighborhood’s 20,000 residents.

Ir Amim, an Israeli group that advocates for equal rights in Jerusalem and has closely followed developments in Issawiya, said the operations are “unprecedented in scope and scale,” amounting to a “violent disruption of daily life.”

In addition to sweeping arrest raids, police have set up flying checkpoints that strangle traffic and issued arbitrary fines for minor violations of local ordinances, it said.

“It’s inexplicable and unjustifiable that an entire neighborhood would be targeted” because of individual offenses, said Amy Cohen, a spokeswoman for the group.

Mohammed Abu al-Hummus, the head of Issawiya’s local council, says around 750 people have been detained in the last nine months, with most released after a day or two and many placed under house arrest for days or weeks. He says only around 30 people have been formally charged.

Rosenfeld, the police spokesman, said fewer people have been detained and more have been indicted, but did not provide figures.

Rights groups and residents acknowledge that young people respond to the police operations by throwing stones and firebombs. But they say police provoke the violence and many fear the effects it will have on the next generation.

“It’s a long-lasting trauma for them,” said Tal Hassin, a lawyer with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. “If you talk with kids, especially the boys, they are big heroes, But it’s only a facade. They don’t sleep at night, they have nightmares.”

Her group has sent formal complaints to the police chief and the attorney general presenting evidence of a campaign of collective punishment and routine violations of Israeli laws governing the treatment of minors. It has not received a response.

Barakat, the optometrist, has seen the effects on his own son, a shy, soft-spoken 15-year-old whose friend was recently arrested. He says his son rarely sleeps longer than three hours at a time and sometimes screams out at night.

“When he sees what happens in the streets he feels anxious. He’s nervous at home, at school — and not just him, the whole generation,” he said.

“He goes to bed at nine. He gets up three hours later and wants water, or he gets up and wants to watch a football game. He’s not even interested in the game, he just wants to sit with his mom and dad.”


FILE - In this June 28, 2019 file photo, Palestinians clash with Israeli police in Jerusalem's Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya, a day after a Palestinian was shot and killed by police during a protest in the same neighborhood. Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into Issawiya in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10, on suspicion of stone-throwing. The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs. Residents and human rights groups say the provocative raids have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)


FILE - In this June 28, 2019 file photo, Palestinians burn an Israeli flag during clashes with Israeli police in East Jerusalem's Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya, a day after a Palestinian was shot and killed by police during a protest in the same neighborhood. Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into Issawiya in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10, on suspicion of stone-throwing. The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs. Residents and human rights groups say the provocative raids have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

FILE - In this Feb. 20, 2020 file photo, Malik Eissa, a nine-year-old Palestinian boy rests in Hadassa hospital in Jerusalem. Malik, who was shot in the face by Israeli police in the tense east Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya, will not regain vision in his left eye despite surgery. For the last nine months, Israeli police have raided Issawiya nearly every day. They've searched houses, issued fines and detained youths as young as 10 on suspicion of stone-throwing. The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs, which police say justifies their heightened presence. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, File)


FILE - In this June 28, 2019 file photo, Palestinians clash with Israeli police in the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, a day after a Palestinian was shot and killed by police during a protest in the same neighborhood. Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in east Jerusalem in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10, on suspicion of stone-throwing. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean, )

This Monday, Feb. 24 2020 photo, shows a general view of the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in East Jerusalem. Nearly every day for the last nine months Israeli police have stormed into Issawiya in a campaign they say is needed to maintain law and order. Rights groups say that in addition to searching houses and issuing fines, they have detained hundreds of people — some as young as 10, on suspicion of stone-throwing. The operations frequently ignite clashes, with local youths throwing rocks and firebombs, which police say justifies their heightened presence. Residents and human rights groups say the provocative raids have created an atmosphere of terror, with parents afraid to let their children play outside. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Burger King breaks the mold with new advertising campaign

This undated image provided by Burger King shows an advertising campaign image with the Whopper hamburger. The burger chain is showing its Whopper covered in mold in print and TV ads running in Europe and the U.S. The message: Burger King is removing artificial preservatives from the Whopper. (Burger King via AP)

Burger King is breaking the mold in its new advertising campaign.

The burger chain is portraying its Whopper covered in mold in print and TV ads running in Europe and the U.S. The message: Burger King is removing artificial preservatives from its signature burger.

The company, already known for irreverent ad campaigns, turned it up a notch, including a time-lapse of a decaying burger on Twitter. That imagery goes beyond the print ads that show a 28-day-old burger — a week beyond.

Early reaction to the campaign Wednesday was a mix of applause for the shift away from preservatives, to disgust.

The restaurant, based in Miami, Florida, says it has removed artificial preservatives from the Whopper in several European countries — including France, Sweden and Spain — and around 400 of its 7,346 U.S. restaurants. It plans to remove preservatives from Whoppers served in all of its restaurants this year.

The Whopper is topped with onions, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickles, all of which will contain no artificial preservatives.

By the end of this year, Burger King said all food items — including sandwiches, sides and desserts — will be free from artificial colors, artificial flavors and artificial preservatives in the U.S. and select European countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom.

McDonald’s announced in 2018 that it was removing artificial colors, flavors and preservatives from seven of its burgers.

THIS WEEKS NEWS MEMES

 
A house along Hoover Beach is covered by ice formed by high winds in Hamburg N.Y., on Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)