BBC NEWS: April 2018

Monday, 30 April 2018

Iranians launch banknote protest to get round censorship

A group of Twitter users launch a campaign to spread messages of dissent on banknotes.

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Nigeria’s deadly codeine cough syrup epidemic

With thousands in Nigeria addicted to codeine cough syrup, BBC Africa goes undercover to investigate.

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The challenge of identifying dead migrants

Pavlos Pavildis works to reunite dead migrants found in the Evros River with their families.

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Why does the US still have 'debtors' prisons'?

Four in 10 Americans wouldn't have money to cover a $400 fine - so many serve time in jail instead.

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Brazilian surfer Rodrigo Koxa breaks wave world record

Surf officials confirm the 80ft (24.4 metre) wave Rodrigo Koxa surfed was a world record.

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Crossing Divides: Brazilian Christians rebuild 'Satan's' temple

Evangelical Christians are crossing the religious divide to rebuild an Afro-Brazilian temple, following a series of attacks.

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Can music bridge Thailand's sectarian divide?

A 14-year conflict between Muslim insurgents and Thai authorities has claimed more than 7,000 lives.

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Donald Trump attends rally instead of correspondents' dinner

The US president avoided the White House Correspondents' dinner, but was still the butt of the jokes.

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Ostracised and fetishised: The perils of travelling as a young black woman

Ashley Butterfield has been around the world - but a visit to India brought home the challenges of being a lone black female tourist.

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Are our online lives about to become 'private' again?

The new rules which might help stop private information being shared without our knowledge.

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Did comedian's Sarah Sanders roast go too far?

President Trump's press secretary was visibly upset during a comedian's personalised takedown at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

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Beauty standards: Egypt's curly hair comeback

How social media is driving a curly hair comeback in Egypt.

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Golden State Killer: The end of a 40-year hunt?

After four decades, police believe they've finally caught the Golden State Killer.

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Thousands Protest Across Spain After 5 Men Are Cleared Of Gang Rape

Thousands of protesters flooded the streets in cities across Spain after a

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Trump on Russian 'informant': Putin wants to make U.S. more chaotic

Trump says Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, claiming to be an "informant" is only doing so because Putin wants to make the United States more chaotic.

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Woman Allegedly Suffering From PTSD Sues Southwest Airlines After Engine Failure Flight

She called it a "horror."

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NRA Convention Bans Guns To Protect Mike Pence. Parkland Survivors' Jaws Drop.

Guns will be barred during Vice President Mike Pence's appearance at an

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Stage Set for Trump’s Meeting with Kim Jong Un

The president shared updates about his forthcoming summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, saying he spoke with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, and that the meeting’s time and location are being set.

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Voters vent frustration, disappointment with Washington, elected officials

ABC News contributor Frank Luntz held a focus group with Democratic and Republican voters to understand how they feel about the state of politics heading into the midterms.

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The Great Game in Asia: How China Sees Taiwan

For the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan represents the final obstacle to truly concluding the Chinese Civil War. In the wake of China’s live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait, along with the largest naval drills in history of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, the Republic of China’s (Taiwan) status and meaning to the U.S.-China relationship is more prominent than ever.

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1,300-Pound Great White Shark Named Hilton Spotted Near Florida Panhandle

A Twitter-famous shark turned up in a new location on Friday -- near the

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Police Nab cop-killer Suspect After four-day Manhunt in Maine

Police caught 29-year-old John Williams, the man authorities say killed Corporal Eugene Cole on Wednesday, after four days on the run.

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Great Barrier Reef given £275million investment as damage spreads

Australia on Sunday pledged a major cash injection to restore and protect the Great Barrier Reef in what it said would be a game-changer for the embattled natural wonder. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said more than A$500 million (£275 million) will go towards improving water quality, tackling predators, and expanding restoration efforts. The World Heritage-listed site, which attracts millions of tourists, is reeling from significant bouts of coral bleaching due to warming sea temperatures linked to climate change. The reef is also under threat from the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, which has proliferated due to pollution and agricultural runoff. Mr Turnbull said it was the "largest ever single investment - to protect the reef, secure its viability and the 64,000 jobs that rely on the reef." "We want to ensure the reef's future for the benefit of all Australians, particularly those whose livelihood depends on the reef," he added. The reef is a critical national asset, contributing A$6.4 billion (£3.5 billion) a year to the Australian economy. A mass bleaching event of coral in the Great Barrier Reef happened during an extended heatwave in 2016 Credit: GREG TORDA/AFP/Getty Images Canberra has previously committed more than Aus$2 billion to protect the site over the next decade, but has been criticised for backing a huge coal project by Indian mining giant Adani nearby. With its heavy use of coal-fired power and relatively small population, Australia is considered one of the world's worst per-capita greenhouse gas polluters. Canberra insists it is taking strong action to address the global threat of climate change, having set an ambitious target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Coral reefs | The main dangers Mr Turnbull said part of the money will be used to mitigate the impacts of climate change, but gave no details. The bulk of the new funding - just over A$200 million - was earmarked to improve water quality by changing farming practices and adopting new technologies and land management. "The money will go towards improving water quality, working with farmers to prevent sediment, nitrogen and pesticide runoff into the reef," said Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg. "It will ensure that we tackle the crown-of-thorns... and use the best available science to ensure our coral is resilient to heat and light stress."

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'Avengers: Infinity War' Just Had The Biggest Opening Weekend Ever

"Avengers: Infinity War," the culmination of a 10-year Marvel film journey,

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U.S. concerned by 'destabilizing and malign activities' of Iran: Pompeo

By Lesley Wroughton and Ori Lewis TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The United States is deeply concerned by Iran's "destabilizing and malign activities", new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. The former CIA director was speaking on a flying visit to the region, where he had earlier in the day met with Saudi King Salman in Riyadh and stressed the need for unity among Gulf allies as Washington aims to muster support for new sanctions against Iran to curb its missile program. The whirlwind trip to NATO in Brussels and to Middle East allies came only hours after Pompeo was confirmed as Trump's top diplomat.

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Madagascar's president rules out resignation despite protests

Madagascar's President Hery Rajaonarimampianina on Sunday refused to yield to opposition demands that he resign from office, following eight days of anti-government protests in the capital. The opposition accuses the government of trying to elbow them out of the race through new electoral laws they claim benefit the incumbent. The protests erupted last week and on the first day two people were killed and at least 16 people wounded, with the police accused of firing real bullets at the crowd.

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Duterte permanently bans Filipinos going to work in Kuwait after maid found stuffed in freezer

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said the temporary ban on Filipinos going to work in Kuwait is now permanent, intensifying a diplomatic standoff over the treatment of migrant workers in the Gulf nation. Mr Duterte in February imposed a prohibition on workers heading to Kuwait following the murder of a Filipina maid whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in the Gulf state. The crisis deepened after Kuwaiti authorities last week ordered Manila's envoy to leave the country over videos of Philippine embassy staff helping workers in Kuwait flee allegedly abusive employers. The two nations had been negotiating a labour deal that Philippine officials said could result in the lifting of the ban but the recent escalation in tensions has put an agreement in doubt. "The ban stays permanently. There will be no more recruitment for especially domestic helpers. No more," Mr Duterte told reporters in the southern city of Davao. There was no immediate response from Kuwait, where around 262,000 Filipinos are employed - nearly 60 percent of them as domestic workers, according to the Philippines' foreign department. Last week the Philippines apologised over the rescue videos but Kuwaiti officials announced they were expelling Manila's ambassador and recalling their own envoy from the Southeast Asian nation. In quotes | Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines Kuwait also detained four Filipinos hired by the Philippine embassy and issued arrest warrants against three diplomatic personnel, Manila said. Mr Duterte on Sunday described the treatment of workers in Kuwait as a "calamity". He said he would bring home Filipina maids who suffered abuse as he appealed to workers who wanted to stay in the oil-rich state. "I would like to address to their patriotism: come home. No matter how poor we are, we will survive. The economy is doing good and we are short of our workers," he said. About 10 million Filipinos work abroad, seeking high-paying jobs they are unable to find at home, and their remittances are a major pillar of the Philippine economy. The Philippine government has for decades hailed overseas workers as modern heroes but advocacy groups have highlighted the social cost of migration, tearing families apart and making Filipinos vulnerable to abuse. Mr Duterte lashed out at Kuwait in February, alleging Arab employers routinely rape Filipina workers, force them to work 21 hours a day and feed them scraps. However after the latest row, Mr Duterte used a conciliatory tone as he addressed the "diplomatic ruckus" on Saturday. "Apparently it seems as if they have anger against Filipinos ... I do not want to send (workers) because apparently you do not like Filipinos," he said in a speech before Filipinos in Singapore. "Just do not hurt them. I plead that they'd be given a treatment deserving of a human being," he said in the same event.

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Lynching memorial leaves some quietly seething: 'Let sleeping dogs lie'

One mile away, another historical monument tells a very different tale about the American south: the First White House of the Confederacy celebrates the life of “renowned American patriot” Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederate states, while making virtually no mention of the hundreds of black people he and his family enslaved. The contradictions of Montgomery’s historical narratives were on full display this week as thousands of tourists and progressive activists flocked to the city to mark the opening of the country’s first memorial to lynching victims – while some locals quietly seethed, saying they resented the new museum for dredging up the past and feared it would incite anger and backlash within black communities. “It’s going to cause an uproar and open old wounds,” said Mikki Keenan, a 58-year-old longtime Montgomery resident, who was eating lunch at a southern country-style restaurant a mile from the memorial.

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Special celebration for longtime Pittsburgh Pirates usher’s 100th birthday

Phil Coyne is beloved in the Steel City, serving the Pittsburgh Pirates for 82 years as an usher. The team and his fans honored Coyne for his 100th birthday with a celebration at the ballpark he loves.

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Arizona police officer shot by carjacking suspect dies

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — A police officer in the Arizona border city of Nogales was killed after he tried to stop a carjacking suspect.

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'My gladiator lay down his shield': Toddler Alfie Evans dies in Britain

Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old British toddler whose grave illness drew international attention, died early on Saturday, his family said. Alfie had a rare, degenerative disease and had been in a semi-vegetative state for more than a year. After a series of court cases, doctors at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool removed his life support on Monday, against his parents wishes.

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Fox News Reporter: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Deserves Apology After Press Dinner

Fox News reporter Ed Henry said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee

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Russian FM says US trying to 'divide Syria into parts'

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's foreign minister said Saturday the United States is trying to divide Syria.

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Saudi Aramco appoints first woman to board of directors

Saudi national oil giant Aramco said Sunday that five new members had been appointed to its board of directors, including the first woman in the firm's history. Lynn Laverty Elsenhans, 60, is the former head of US oil company Sunoco Inc. and has been director of oil services company Baker Hughes since July last year. Other newly-appointed Aramco board members include Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan, while Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh was retained as the company's chairman, state-owned Aramco said in a statement.

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Russian Twitter 'bots' attempted to influence election by supporting Jeremy Corbyn, investigation finds

Russia attempted to influence the results of the general election by promoting the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, it has been claimed. 6,500 Russian Twitter accounts, many of which are run by internet robots known as "bots", supported Labour in the run up to last year's election, an investigation by The Sunday Times has found. The social media accounts, most of which were created in the weeks before polling day, denigrated the Conservatives and promoted Labour during key points of the campaign, according to reports. The Twitter accounts helped Corbyn turn the Manchester Arena bombing into a campaigning point by amplifying tweets criticising May for cutting police numbers as Home Secretary, it was claimed. Matt Hancock, the digital and culture secretary, said the revelations are "extremely concerning" and urged Twitter to act to prevent it from happening again. Most of the social media accounts were created in the weeks before polling day, it was reported "It is absolutely unacceptable for any nation to attempt to interfere in the democratic elections of another country," he told The Sunday Times. "The social media companies need to act to safeguard our democratic discourse and reveal what they know." A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Russian Government made clear its support for the Conservative Party in the 2017 UK General Election, with the Russian Embassy in London promoting their ideological “convergence” and Theresa May’s “strong and stable” slogan on Twitter. “Labour’s proposed crackdown on tax dodging, failed privatisation and corrupt oligarchs is opposed by both May and Putin’s conservative philosophy and their super-rich supporters. “The Labour Party’s people-powered election campaign attracted huge levels of public support online. We were not aware of any from automated bots, categorically did not pay for any and are not aware of any of our supporters doing so.”

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Northrop Grumman Has a Smart Strategy for Business Success

Northrop Grumman is only bidding on projects that the company believes will generate the best financial returns on its investments. Continuing a recent trend amongst major defense companies, Northrop Grumman is only bidding on projects that the company believes will generate the best financial returns on its investments. The company even ruled out bidding on certain programs where it is the incumbent, such as a new replacement electro-optical distributed aperture system (DAS)—the contract for which ended up going to Raytheon.

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RIP Larry Harvey: Burning Man's leading light dies at 70

Larry Harvey, the co-founder of the Burning Man festival who grew it from an event on a San Francisco beach to a desert arts festival of global significance, died Saturday. He was 70. Harvey had been hospitalized after a stroke on April 4, and had remained in critical condition. "Though we all hoped he would recover, he passed peacefully this morning at 8:24am in San Francisco, with members of his family at his side," wrote Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell in the organization's official announcement. SEE ALSO: Burning Man Isn't What You Think, and Never Has Been Harvey's story has already passed into countercultural legend. A former landscape gardener and carpenter, he and his friend Jerry James decided to burn a large wooden figure of a man on San Francisco's Baker Beach in 1986. The Burning Man event, repeated annually, began to draw exponentially increasing numbers of attendees — so many that Harvey and friends needed a new location where it could grow relatively unchecked by authorities. In 1990 they found one in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, and the week-long extravaganza of Burning Man began. Much of the event's energy in those early years was provided by the Cacophony Society, a culture-jamming collective of California artists. But it was Harvey who became the face and the driving force behind Burning Man's expansion. After a particularly anarchic version of the festival in 1996, in which one participant ran his car over a number of people in tents, Harvey oversaw Burning Man's transformation into Black Rock City — a temporary urban environment with roads, gas lamps and an army of volunteers. Harvey was a self-educated deep thinker who would never use one word where a paragraph would do. He was often to be found delivering lectures and giving interviews, his signature cowboy hat never far from his head. But that ceaseless brain provided the philosophy and principles that made Burning Man what it is today — a year-round global network with 85 official regional events on six continents. He insisted that the event resist commercialization, so that even now, with around 70,000 regular annual attendees, the only things you can buy with actual money at Burning Man are ice and coffee. He balanced the "radical self reliance" needed to survive in the harsh desert environment with a "gift economy" culture — encouraging participants to offer goods and services freely to others in the name of community. Harvey insisted that everyone think of themselves as a participant and a provider; at Burning Man, there were to be "no spectators." Indeed, the volunteerism rate at Black Rock City — roughly 70% of attendees get involved with one of the events' many sub-organizations such as the Lamplighters or the Department of Public Works — has amazed the urban planners and city managers who made the pilgrimage. Burning Man's fame soon far outgrew the numbers who made the actual trek to Black Rock. In particular, Silicon Valley took to the event with a vengeance. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were regular attendees. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were not only enthusiastic Burners themselves, but chose their CEO, Eric Schmidt, because he was the only candidate who had been to Burning Man. SEE ALSO: Make Burning Man suck again! Harvey allowed and accommodated the increasing number of celebrities (such as Kanye West and Katy Perry) to attend. He weathered storms of grumbles from old-time Burners over the "turnkey" camps that accommodated the rich, pointing out that only 2 percent of attendees were members of society's wealthiest 1 percent. He soothed the event's constant conflicts with its landlords at the Bureau of Land Management, and encouraged the artists whose work has spread out from the festival, now installed in locations such as Las Vegas and the San Francisco Bay Bridge. But his mind was forever on the philosophy behind the event and the good it could do in the world at large. Burning Man was never just a party or an arts festival to Harvey; it was what anarchists call a Temporary Autonomous Zone, a space to try different ways of living, that would inspire change back in the "default world." Harvey called Burning Man a "hundred year movement," and felt that regional events known as "burns" would soon overtake the need for one central Burning Man. And still it grew. Every year Harvey designated a theme for the event — from the simple ("Floating World," a nod to the prehistoric lake bed of Black Rock) to the historical ("Da Vinci's Workshop") to the obscure ("Caravansary"). Some themes were more successful than others, but they all inspired jaw-dropping art and playfully improvised theme camps. Harvey had initially set up Burning Man as a private corporation — one that began to take in more than $10 million in annual ticket revenue. (Its expenditure often matched that, not least because the BLM kept raising its land use fees). Facing down criticism on this front, Harvey turned the organization into a nonprofit. He ceded day-to-day management to Goodell, his dear friend and colleague for 22 years, and designated himself Chief Philosophical Officer. A sign above his office door read "Larry Harvey does not exist." But he did. He most definitely did, and he changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who have attended the event and found it to be transformational. "Larry Harvey had an idea and because of that idea my life changed forever," wrote one attendee on Facebook who first got together with her husband at the event. "That idea brought me dozens of amazing friends from across the globe, obscene amounts of fun, broken bones, an empty wallet, dreadful over-confidence, desert survival skills (sometimes), the ability to cook dinner for 50 people in tent in a sandstorm, some beautiful corsets, a half-share in a lock-up garage in Reno, camping kit that's eternally full of gypsum, and the love of my life." Harvey is survived by a son, a brother, a nephew, and a hundred-year movement.

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3 Siblings Are on Their Way to Recovery After The Accident That Killed Their Parents

They are all in critical care.

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Detroit Was Crumbling. Here’s How It’s Reviving.

By MONICA DAVEY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2JGLfh0

South Korea to End Propaganda Broadcasts Along Border With North

By CHOE SANG-HUN from NYT World https://ift.tt/2KnDRYY

Twin Bombings in Kabul Kill or Wound Dozens at Rush Hour

By MUJIB MASHAL from NYT World https://ift.tt/2HEDaZz

A Week Inside a Soccer Club When the Money Runs Out

By RORY SMITH from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2r9jaYN

A Polyglot N.B.A. Swears by One Thing: That Call Was #@!&

By SCOTT CACCIOLA from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2rafy8E

Bus carrying high school chorus team crashes in South Carolina ... - CBS News

CBS News

Bus carrying high school chorus team crashes in South Carolina ...
CBS News
WALTERBORO, S.C. -- Authorities say 17 people were injured, two of them in serious condition, when a charter bus carrying a high school chorus team crashed early Sunday morning, CBS affiliate WCSC-TV reports. The crash occurred around 1 a.m. local time ...

and more »

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Capitals Hold On to Early Lead, Tying Series With the Penguins

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2FqQZJd

Gary Sanchez’s Homer Gives Yankees a 9th Straight Win

By BILLY WITZ from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2JFNIb9

The Profound Normalcy of a Day at the Movies in Saudi Arabia

By HAIFAA AL MANSOUR from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2JFM8pT

After Chaos, Port Authority Sets Storm Rules for Planes to Kennedy

By PATRICK McGEEHAN from NYT N.Y. / Region https://ift.tt/2r9pDSy

What’s on TV Monday: ‘James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction’ and ‘Elementary’

By SARA ARIDI from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/2vXyXPj

Amber Rudd, Britain’s Home Minister, Resigns Over Migration Crisis

By STEPHEN CASTLE from NYT World https://ift.tt/2HFcHyT

At Toronto Vigil After Van Attack: Sadness, Civic Pride and Unease

By CATHERINE PORTER from NYT World https://ift.tt/2KlNLKu

Ronny Jackson, Failed V.A. Pick, Is Unlikely to Return as Trump’s Doctor

By NICHOLAS FANDOS and MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2vXGL3w

James Harden’s 41 Points Lead Rockets Over Jazz

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/2HGYhKJ

How Your Brain Can Trick You Into Trusting People

By TIM HERRERA from NYT Smarter Living https://ift.tt/2JBU4bG

Quotation of the Day: Doctors Ask When a Heart Is Not Worth Fixing

By Unknown Author from NYT Today’s Paper https://ift.tt/2KoNiY7

No Corrections: April 30, 2018

By Unknown Author from NYT Corrections https://ift.tt/2FsEs7X

Britain, Pamplona, Killer Caterpillars: Your Monday Briefing

By DAN LEVIN from NYT Briefing https://ift.tt/2HAkPAE

‘Trust’ Season 1, Episode 6: A Dead Body Focuses the Mind

By NATALIE RINN from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/2HFjCEn

‘Billions’ Season 3, Episode 6: Eat or Be Eaten

By SEAN T. COLLINS from NYT Arts https://ift.tt/2HCe3GF

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The After of Disaster in “The Great Quake”

EARLY ON IN The Great Quake, Kris Madsen starts her first day as a schoolteacher in Alaska, a place the inexperienced but enthusiastic explorer chose for its location near the top of the alphabet. It’s 1962, and Madsen, a Californian who has just finished college, wants to make a good impression. She has neatly organized her desk when a first-grader named Rocky walks in carrying a freshly caught salmon nearly as big as he is. “For you, teacher!” he says as he lays the fish across the desk.

Lovely moments like this abound in Henry Fountain’s book about one of the most powerful earthquakes ever measured: the Good Friday earthquake that struck Alaska in 1964. A science writer at The New York Times, Fountain explains how this devastating earthquake changed the way we understand the Earth’s crust and led to the general acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics. But it’s a story he tells as a humanist who acknowledges that science is just one thread in the vast tapestry of life. In Fountain’s telling, scientific progress is inseparable from individuals’ hopes, fears, and fates; it’s of a part with the sheer physical beauty of nature, subordinate to the insoluble mysteries of existence.

The easy-to-read, dramatic narrative introduces the reader to an extensive cast of characters without ever losing its way. There’s George Plafker, the son of Polish immigrants, whose years in the Hebrew National Orphan Home in Yonkers instilled in him the toughness and discipline he would later need as a geologist in the Alaskan wilderness. The reader meets nearly all the denizens of Chenega, the tiny, isolated village where Kris is teaching when the quake hits. Avis Kompkoff, for example: born to an alcoholic mother in Anchorage, she was adopted by a family in Chenega, and by 1964 she’s a 19-year-old married mother of two with a third on the way. She loves living there:

[N]ow, as an adult, from time to time she would stop what she was doing and gaze out past the cove to the lands beyond, including the peaks of the Chugach. What a lovely world God has created, she would find herself thinking. And we get to enjoy it in this beautiful place.

Chenega isn’t the only Alaskan locale the reader gets to know intimately. Valdez is populated by the kind of rugged individualists who would build a high school gym over a tidal ditch; when the fish are running, students can hear their tails splashing beneath the basketball court. Fountain’s descriptions of the state’s brooding landscape, too, are evocative: “But the cloudy, foggy days — common weather for Prince William Sound — served up their own kind of beauty, turning a cluster of small islands offshore into dark smudges, like daubs of dark gray in a wet-on-wet watercolor.”

After these introductions, Fountain describes the earthquake’s arrival in a consistently terrifying passage during which page after page of impossible things happen — stairways dance, an entire waterfront collapses, the facade of a JCPenney slices a woman in half. Fountain emphasizes the realness of these skin-crawling images by telling the story through the eyes of survivors (“it scared the curl right out of my hair,” one woman tells him). Bob Atwood, an Anchorage newspaperman practicing his trumpet when the quake hits, leaves his house just before it compresses “as if it were a giant squeezebox”:

Getting out when he had had saved his life. But Atwood didn’t have much time to think about that, or about the loss of his worldly possessions. Around him, trees were falling over. Worse, the ground itself was starting to break into strange, angular blocks, some rotating up and others down […] Suddenly a crevasse opened beneath his feet, and he was falling […] He saw that he was in a deep V-shaped chasm, and it was starting to fill up with other objects — tree stumps, fence posts and boulder-sized chunks of frozen soil. His right arm seemed to be buried in the sand, and he realized that his right hand was still holding his trumpet.

After the quake come the tsunamis — again, the stuff of nightmares, rendered by Fountain in terrifying detail and with a real sense of tragedy. The reader has gotten to know the people being swept out to sea, never to be recovered, including a bridegroom-to-be who had made the fateful decision to go to the Valdez dock that afternoon to earn a little extra money before embarking on married life. Among its other powerful charms, the book forces the reader to think about the nature of crisis, how it can happen at any time, to anyone.

Some of the most moving passages involve the aftermath of the devastation in Chenega, where families were physically torn apart by the waves. One little boy playing at the beach makes it to safety, against all odds:

For Timmy Selanoff, the village was too far away, and the water was coming too fast. He had to get away from it, and the only way was up — nearly straight up, since where he was on the beach a steep hill came almost straight down to the water. Timmy started up. He remembered grabbing on to a twig or a root at some point. Other than that, he recalled later, he had no memory of what happened. He credited divine intervention — as the second wave approached, a voice had told him not to be afraid.

Timmy is not the only survivor who reported hearing a voice. One of the strengths of Fountain’s writing is that in a book about science he gives the unfathomable plenty of room, and treats personal, even mystical, experiences with just as much respect as he does the data gleaned from measuring the ocean’s floor (something, the reader learns, that was accomplished with a device called a fathometer).

Throughout, Fountain includes colorful history — the impossibly hard lives of Alaskan gold miners, the evolution of scientific thinking about how the Earth’s crust works — and amazing factoids such as this one, which details a Chinese device from the second century that was one of the earliest known seismometers:

It consisted of a large bronze jar with dragon heads arrayed around it like the points of a compass, a bronze toad beneath each dragon and most likely some kind of pendulum inside. Each dragon held a ball in its mouth. Shaking from a certain direction would cause the ball from one dragon to drop into the mouth of the accompanying toad.

Ultimately, the scientists about whom Fountain writes want to understand what the Great Quake says about the Earth’s mechanics. Fountain wants to know how things work, too — how the Earth is like a disk of pizza dough that gets thinner where it’s pulled — but his interests are more wide-ranging and resolutely anchored in the human. In one telling anecdote, Fountain recounts how George Plafker, the geologist whose on-the-ground observations after the earthquake led to our contemporary understanding of plate tectonics, leaves a conference in Seattle and flies north as soon as the quake hits. But he’s only packed for a two-day trip, so before joining him in Alaska a colleague stops by Plafker’s house in California to pick up fresh clothes from his wife.

It is this eye for the humanizing detail that makes Fountain’s book such a pleasure to read, and anecdotes such as this serve as a welcome reminder that as lofty a concept as knowledge is, it comes to life in the smallest moments of human discovery and experience. After all, great scientific progress may rely on data and measurements, but it can’t be separated from history, personality, coincidence, catastrophe, and — just maybe — a change of clothes.

Berlin-based journalist Sally McGrane writes about Western Europe, Russia, and Ukraine for The New York Times, newyorker.com, and others. Her spy novel Moscow at Midnight will be published in May.

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