Current Events #4
A Girl’s Best Friend
Diamonds are a girl’s best
friend — especially if you’re
a sharp-eyed 14-year-old.
Oklahoma teen Tana Clymer
made a stunning discovery
Saturday when she came
across a 3.85-carat canary
diamond while touring
Arkansas’ Crater of
Diamonds State Park.
The yellow diamond is
teardrop-shaped and about
the size of a jellybean.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/
oklahoma-teen-finds-yellow-canarydiamond-dirt-article-1.1492936
Hang ‘Em Again—Are We in TX?
Death penalty opponents
pleaded with Iran on Thursday
to spare a convicted drug felon
who survived a hanging and
was sent from the morgue to a
hospital to recuperate so he
could be rehanged. It
appeared to be the first time
that the judicial authorities in
Iran, one of the world’s top
users of the death penalty,
twice ordered a hanging
carried out.
Iran carries out more
executions than any country
except China. So far in 2013,
the authorities are believed to
have executed a total of 508
people, Amnesty International
said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/
middleeast/after-man-survives-hangingiran-plans-a-second-attempt.html?_r=0
NSA is
Always
Listening
The sweep and scope of National Security Agency snooping abroad forced President
Barack Obama once again to hear complaints from a U.S. ally angry about the
surveillance net that has sparked an international debate over the limits of American
spying.
France is the latest in a growing list of nations -- Germany, Brazil and Mexico included -demanding explanations from Washington. A report published on Monday said the U.S.
swept up 70 million French telephone records and text messages and recorded some
private conversations.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/20
22098021_apxnsasurveillance.html
Girls Just Want to…Drive?
More than 60 Saudi
women got behind the
wheels of their cars as
part of a protest
against a ban on
women driving in the
kingdom, activists have
claimed.
Though no specific
Saudi law bans women
from driving, women
are not issued licenses.
They mostly rely on
drivers or male
relatives to move
around.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct
/26/saudi-arabia-woman-driving-car-ban
Cough, Cough, Hack, Wheeze
BEIJING, Oct 14
(Reuters) - China said on
Monday it would give
rewards amounting to 5
billion yuan ($816.91
million) for curbing air
pollution in six regions
where the problem is
serious, underscoring
government concern
about a source of public
anger.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/chinapollution
Australia is Burning
Blue Mountains,
Australia (CNN) -Firefighters battling
blazes that menaced
the western suburbs of
Sydney, Australia's
largest city, are
concerned about
Thursday's weather
conditions.
Fitzsimmons reported
24 of the 66 active fires
are uncontained and
raging across a wide
swath of Australia's
most populous state
destroying at least 193
homes in the Blue
Mountains area.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/world/asia/
australia-fires/
It is Not for Paddling
(CNN) -- A marine science
instructor's late-afternoon
snorkel off the Southern
California coast last
Sunday was first met with
shock and soon
excitement when she
discovered a gigantic
oarfish, a deep-sea
creature that remains little
known to the science
world and people outside.
Jasmine Santana was
about 15 feet underwater
when she found the 18foot-long, silvery fish with
reddish fins and eyes the
size of a half-dollar staring
at her from the sandy
bottom.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/us/californi
a-18-foot-oarfish/
Is That in My Drinking Water?
Chad Pregracke has made
it his life’s work to clean up
the Mississippi River and
other American waterways.
Since 1998, nearly 70,000
volunteers have helped
Pregracke and his nonprofit
remove more than 7 million
pounds of garbage from 23
rivers across the country.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/25/cnn
-heroes-top-10-chadpregracke/?hpt=ac_mid
Can’t That Get You Prison Time?
MIAMI — Florida law
enforcement officials,
already embarrassed by the
revelation that two convicted
killers were released from a
state prison after forging
documents that allowed
them to walk free,
acknowledged Tuesday that
they had discovered at least
five previous instances of
such forgeries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/us/florida-officials-say-2prison-escapees-were-not-the-first-to-use-forgeddocuments.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
Candles Burned
Out Too Soon
Garcia-Cisneros purposely drove through a
large leaf pile on Main Street, according to
court records, and felt a significant bump.
At her home, blocks away, she asked
Echeverria to check the SUV for damage.
Her 17-year-old brother returned to the
scene on Main Street and told his sister
she had “run over a child,” records say.
Police say step-sisters Abigail Robinson,
11, and Anna Dieter-Eckerdt, 6, were
struck while apparently lying in the leaf pile
on Sunday. Anna died at the scene. Abigail
died the next night at a Portland hospital.
http://www.oregonlive.com/forestgrove/index.ssf/2013/10/forest_grove_fatal
_crash_for_t.html
Gold Does Grow on Trees
According to the paper, eucalyptus and
acacia trees, such as the ones studied at
the Freddo and Barns Gold prospects in
Western and South Australia respectively,
have deep and extensive root systems. In
times of drought, their roots dig deep in
search of water. So deep, in fact, that
some trees have literally struck gold.
While it's not new that plants and trees
absorb minerals such as gold through their
leaves, scientists had previously been
unable to prove that the minerals in
question came from deeper underground
and not from surface soil deposits.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/world/goldgrowing-on-trees/
Prejudice Starts With a Blonde
NA tests confirmed Friday that
the mystery blonde girl who
was taken from a Roma couple
caring for her in Greece is in
fact of Roma descent, just not
related to the family who raised
her.
The 6- or 7-year old, named
Maria, is the daughter of a
Bulgarian Roma woman who
gave the girl away because she
was too poor to provide for her,
the Associated Press reports.
The discovery is a vindication
to many Roma after the highprofile case provoked
prejudiced allegations of childsnatching.
http://world.time.com/2013/10/25/mysteryblonde-girl-is-roma-after-all/
Lucky #13
Alice Munro, the renowned
Canadian short-story writer
whose visceral work
explores the tangled
relationships between men
and women, small-town
existence and the fallibility
of memory, won the 2013
Nobel Prize in Literature on
Thursday.
Related
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/books/alicemunro-wins-nobel-prize-in-literature.html
Announcing the award in
Stockholm, the Swedish
Academy said that Ms.
Munro, 82, who has written
14 story collections, was a
“master of the
contemporary short story.”
She is the 13th woman to
win the prize.
Fixing Digital Health Care
The Obama administration has
announced an ambitious selfimposed deadline for fixing its
operationally challenged health
care website.
The “tech surge” team is tasked
with getting the Obamacare site
running smoothly “for the vast
majority of users” by Nov. 30.
Dec. 15 is when people need to
be signed up in order to have
coverage begin on Jan. 1. Even
if the website works well by
Dec. 1 for virtually all users that
would leave two weeks for a
potentially large flow of signups.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DCDecoder/2013/1028/Obamacare-websiteIs-one-month-enough-time-to-fix-it-video
Motor City Runs Out ofEven
Gas
though emergency
manager Kevyn Orr announced
in July he planned to have
Detroit declare Chapter 9
bankruptcy, the city still needs
federal court approval to do so.
The process has not been a
smooth one, as many vested
interests involved in the
potential restructuring – namely
the city’s public sector unions
and creditors – have pushed
back significantly. Bondholders
and other creditors are fighting
the prospect of receiving
pennies on the dollar, and
unions say a bankruptcy would
violate the state constitution,
which protects retiree benefits.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/1018/Detroit-sbankruptcy-woes-five-key-things-to-know/How-did-Detroit-s-financialsituation-get-so-dire-and-does-it-hold-lessons-for-other-cities