omgnewsy-blog

[omgnewsy-blog]

Google Location Map Tracks You Even After Turned Off

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/google-location-map-tracks-you-even-after-turned-off/

Google Location Map Tracks You Even After Turned Off

Google has confirmed that it still tracks users even after they turn off the “Location History” setting on their device. It comes just one day after the practice was revealed by an AP investigation.

The clarification is mentioned on a Location History help page, which Google changed on Thursday. The once erroneous wording has now been changed to say:

“This setting does not affect other location services on your device” and acknowledges that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”

The page previously only stated that “with Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

The change comes even though a Google spokesperson maintained on Wednesday that the company had provided “clear descriptions” of all of Google’s tools which may record users’ locations.

It comes just one day after AP revealed in a report that Google did indeed still track users when the Location History function was turned off. The news agency looked into the matter after K. Shankari, a graduate researcher at the University of California Berkeley blogged about how her Android device had prompted her to rate a recent shopping trip to Kohl’s despite her location history function being disabled. AP’s findings were later confirmed by computer-science researchers at Princeton University.

While it is possible to completely disable location tracking, doing so is far more complicated than Google initially let on: users have to delete stored location markers by hand, with each one needing to be selected and deleted individually, unless you want to delete all of your stored activity at the same time.

– RT

[omgnewsy-blog]

Trump Calls White House Aide Omarosa Manigault Newman A 'Dog'

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/trump-calls-white-house-aide-omarosa-manigault-newman-a-dog/

Trump Calls White House Aide Omarosa Manigault Newman A 'Dog'

President Donald Trump lashed out at his former “Apprentice” and White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman Tuesday in especially angry terms, slamming her as a “dog” and a “crazed, crying lowlife” as her tell-all book hit stores.

Manigault Newman — who first gained fame as a contestant on Trump’s reality TV show — has dripped out recordings of embarrassing private conversations at the White House as she promotes a memoir about her time with “The Donald.”

Her book — which paints Trump as a racist, liar and a “germophobe” with a “total lack of empathy” — has plunged the White House and the president into fresh crisis, and her comments to the media have dominated US headlines for days.

Team Trump responded furiously, launching a campaign to discredit her and pursuing legal action against her for breaking an apparent non-disclosure agreement.

Trump had already branded “Omarosa” — as she is commonly known in America — a “lowlife” after she released a recording of her firing by chief of staff John Kelly, seemingly recorded in the White House Situation Room.

And after she released a recording of a conversation she had with Trump after her firing, he repeated called her “wacky.”

But on Tuesday, he ratcheted up the war of words — to a level of nastiness rarely seen, even from a president who has shown he does not pull punches when insulting his critics.

“When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!” Trump tweeted.

His comment immediately prompted criticism on both sides of the political aisle.

“This kind of language is unbecoming of a President of the United States. There is no excuse for it, and Republicans should not be okay with it,” said Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a frequent Trump critic.

“How dare he? He has taken this country to its knees,” said Democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that Trump’s insults have nothing to do with race or gender.

“The president is an equal opportunity person that calls things like he sees it. He always fights fire with fire and doesn’t hold back on doing that across the board,” Sanders said.

– ‘In Trump World, everyone lies’ – The book and the recordings by the disgruntled 44-year-old Manigault Newman, once an ardent Trump ally, represents a stunning breach of presidential trust.

On Tuesday, she explained to CBS News why she made the recordings: “I’m the kind of person who covers her own back. In Trump World, everyone lies.”

“Everyone says one thing one day and they change their story the next day. I wanted to have this type of documentation… in the event I found myself in this position where, as you said, they’re questioning my credibility.”

Just how much she documented of her time in the White House is now of keen interest to her former colleagues and, perhaps, to special counsel Robert Mueller.

Manigault Newman said she had already spoken to the man who is looking into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Team Trump colluded with Moscow to tip the scales. She also says she is willing to do so again.

– ‘Forgetfulness and frustration’ – Manigault Newman’s book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” hit bookstores and digital platforms on Tuesday.

Largely self-serving, it describes the daily firefighting of life on the Trump campaign and then in the White House.

“Donald Trump’s single greatest character flaw as a leader and human being is his complete and total lack of empathy,” she writes, describing the president as a “friend” but attacking him relentlessly.

“Nothing has more meaning to Donald than himself,” she says, alleging that he and his wife Melania sleep in separate rooms and that Trump has brought a tanning bed with him to the White House.

Perhaps the sternest criticism is of Trump’s abilities — Manigault Newman describes him as a brilliant businessman but “just this side of functionally illiterate,” prone to “forgetfulness and frustration” and in a state of ��mental decline” that “could not be denied.”

Manigault Newman has suggested that Trump has been recorded using racial slurs — something Trump denies.

CBS News aired a recording of what appears to be her and other campaign aides hatching a plan to tamp down the damage if such a tape of Trump existed.

Katrina Pierson, one of those aides, told CNN Tuesday she had only entertained the possibility Trump uttered an epithet to placate Manigault Newman so she could move the conversation on.

Despite Trump’s denials, Sanders said she could not guarantee the president had never used racial slurs.

“I haven’t been in every single room,” she said.

– AFP

[omgnewsy-blog]

Carey Dean Moore Dies By Execution Using Fentanyl

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/carey-dean-moore-dies-by-execution-using-fentanyl/

Carey Dean Moore Dies By Execution Using Fentanyl

Nebraska on Tuesday carried out America’s first execution using fentanyl — the opioid at the center of the country’s deadly overdose crisis — as part of a previously-untested, four-drug combination.

Carey Dean Moore, sentenced to death for two 1979 murders, was the first prisoner executed in the Midwestern state in 21 years, in what was its first ever lethal injection.

The 60-year-old was pronounced dead at 10:47 am (1547 GMT). The execution lasted approximately 20 minutes, according to Scott Frakes, director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

Moore’s execution survived a last-minute legal challenge from a drug company and protests about the new lethal injection protocol.

It was a pivotal test for Nebraska, where the state legislature abolished the death penalty in 2015, only to see voters reinstate it the next year in a referendum. The state last performed an execution in 1997 by electric chair.

“I recognize that today’s execution impacts many people on many levels,” said Frakes.

The execution was carried out with “professionalism, respect for the process and dignity for all involved,” he said.

– Questions about drugs used – The lethal injection consisted of the sedative diazepam to bring on unconsciousness, the painkiller fentanyl citrate, the muscle relaxer cisatracurium to stop breathing, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Only potassium chloride has been used before in executions.

Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the new procedure was an indication of the trouble states are having in acquiring death penalty drugs.

“It indicates that states are looking for drugs that are available,” Dunham told AFP.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers and providers have been increasingly hostile to selling such drugs to states. Officials across the country have had to scramble to find the execution drugs they need or find alternatives.

Dunham said Nebraska’s use of fentanyl was problematic, because use of the powerful opioid is closely controlled by law, and the state has not disclosed its source for the drug.

“The manner in which they obtained it is highly questionable,” he said.

– Courts weigh in – Last week, German drug maker Fresenius Kabi challenged Nebraska with regards to two other drugs in the protocol, claiming the company was the likely source of the substances, and if so, Nebraska improperly obtained them.

It demanded that the state disclose the source of its drugs.

But the state insisted the drugs were legally acquired and both a federal judge and an appellate court sided with Nebraska.

Even the pope himself was not able to change Moore’s fate.

Two weeks ago, Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church’s teaching, declaring the death penalty “inadmissible” in all cases.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, a Catholic who supported the reinstatement of the death penalty, was resolute.

“While I respect the pope’s perspective, capital punishment remains the will of the people,” Ricketts said.

A handful of demonstrators gathered during the rainy morning to protest the execution. A small group also gathered in the early evening in the state capital Lincoln to criticize the governor’s decision.

“Ricketts would kill Jesus,” one protester’s sign read.

The American Civil Liberties union also criticized the governor, saying he had carried out an execution “shrouded in secrecy.”

“The 38-year-long journey to this execution further proves what we’ve been saying all along: The ACLU believes the death penalty in America is a broken process from start to finish and should be abolished nationwide,” the group said in a statement.

– ‘I am guilty’ – Moore had been on death row for 38 years and did not want further delays of his execution.

In 1980, while still in his early 20s, he was sentenced to death for the killings the year prior of two Omaha taxi drivers five days apart.

Expressing contrition, he admitted to fatally shooting the first driver during a robbery committed with his brother, and killing the second driver to “foolishly” prove to himself that he could commit murder on his own.

In his final words, Moore alluded to a written statement dated August 2, in which he pointed to other Nebraska death row inmates who claim their innocence.

“I am guilty, they are not,” he wrote. “Why must they remain there one day longer?”

Moore also asked forgiveness from his brother.

Moore’s execution was the 16th in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

– AFP

[omgnewsy-blog]

Boy 11 Hacks Into Replica US Vote Website In Minutes At Convention

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/boy-11-hacks-into-replica-us-vote-website-in-minutes-at-convention/

Boy 11 Hacks Into Replica US Vote Website In Minutes At Convention

An 11-year-old boy managed to hack into a replica of Florida’s election results website in 10 minutes and change names and tallies during a hackers convention, organizers said, stoking concerns about security ahead of nationwide votes.

The boy was the quickest of 35 children, ages 6 to 17, who all eventually hacked into copies of the websites of six swing states during the three-day Def Con security convention over the weekend, the event said on Twitter on Tuesday.

The event was meant to test the strength of U.S. election infrastructure and details of the vulnerabilities would be passed onto the states, it added.

The National Association of Secretaries of State – who are responsible for tallying votes – said it welcomed the convention’s efforts. But it said the actual systems used by states would have additional protections.

“It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilise unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols,” the association said.

The hacking demonstration came as concerns swirl about election system vulnerabilities before mid-term state and federal elections.

U.S President Donald Trump’s national security team warned two weeks ago that Russia had launched “pervasive” efforts to interfere in the November polls.

Participants at the convention changed party names and added as many as 12 billion votes to candidates, the event said.

“Candidate names were changed to ‘Bob Da Builder’ and ‘Richard Nixon’s head’,” the convention tweeted.

The convention linked to what it said was the Twitter account of the winning boy – named there as Emmett Brewer from Austin, Texas.

A screenshot posted on the account showed he had managed to change the name of the winning candidate on the replica Florida website to his own and gave himself billions of votes.

The convention’s “Voting Village” also aimed to expose security issues in other systems such as digital poll books and memory-card readers.

– Reuters

[omgnewsy-blog]

200m Year Old Pterosaur 'Built For Flying'

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/200m-year-old-pterosaur-built-for-flying/

200m Year Old Pterosaur 'Built For Flying'

Scientists on Monday unveiled a previously unknown species of giant pterosaur, the first creatures with a backbone to fly under their own power.

Neither dino nor bird, pterosaurs — more commonly known as pterodactyls — emerged during the late Triassic period more than 200 million years ago and lorded over primeval skies until a massive space rock slammed into Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs and most other forms of life some 65 million years ago.

The newly discovered member of the family, identified through remains found in northeastern Utah, had a wing-span of 1.5 metres (five feet) and 112 teeth, including fang-like spikes sticking out near the snout.

A jutting lower jaw suggests a pelican-like pouch, perhaps to scoop up fish and unsuspecting small reptiles.

“They are delicately framed animals that are built for flying,” said Brooks Britt, a paleontologist at Brigham Young University in Utah and lead author of a study in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Caelestiventus hanseni — roughly, “heavenly wind” — is probably the most complete skeletal remains of a pterosaur ever found.

“Most pterosaurs bones look like road-kill,” Britt told AFP, noting that there are only 30-odd specimens worldwide from the Triassic period which lasted some 51 million years.

By contrast, the new specimen comprises dozens of intact bones and teeth, along with an entire brain casing.

The wings are in fact skin membranes largely held up by the fourth “finger”, or digit, of their forelimbs. Huge sockets suggest C. hanseni had “fantastic eyesight”, said Britt.

– Saints & Sinners – When not soaring in search of a meal, it walked on all fours with its wings folded vertically.

The fossil remains are still encased in sandstone, but scientists generated accurate 3-D images and models of each bone using CAT-scan technology.

The site where C. hanseni was unearthed, known to fossil hunters as Saints & Sinners, reveals a dramatic story of survival and local extinction in the face of climate change, the researchers said.

The rocks it was found in were part of an oasis in a two-million square kilometre (775,000 square mile) desert covered with giant sand dunes.

Pterosaur

“During droughts, large numbers of animals — including pterosaurs, predatory dinosaurs and crocodylomorphs — were drawn to the pond in the middle of the oasis, where they died as water dried up,” said Britt.

The result was a treasure trove of more than 18,000 bones and fragments from dozens of water-starved animals.

C. hanseni is not the biggest pterosaur ever found, but was likely the largest of its era, especially for a desert environment.

It also predates other desert-dwelling specimens by about 65 million years. Pterosaurs from the same period found so far came from ancient coastal areas in what is now Europe and Greenland.

That the high-flying creatures were spread across much of the globe may have helped them survive the end-of-Triassic mass extinction, which wiped out half of the species on land and in the sea.

– AFP

[omgnewsy-blog]

Russian Bridge to Crimea Now Huge Hit With Tourists

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/russian-bridge-to-crimea-now-huge-hit-with-tourists/

Russian Bridge to Crimea Now Huge Hit With Tourists

The new bridge link connecting mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula is proving to be a huge hit with Russian drivers.

The Crimean Bridge has broken another single-day record for car traffic, with 32,000 vehicles crossing the span on Sunday. About 1.6 million cars have crossed the bridge since it opened in May.

This is 20 percent higher than vehicle transport using the Kerch ferry, which had been the only way to get to the peninsula from Russia by car.

Bridge link connecting mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula

Currently, the bridge is open for cars only, but freight transport will start this fall. The railway section of the Crimean Bridge is scheduled to be completed next year.

Summer is usually the peak period for the Crimean peninsula as tourists from all across Russia and neighboring states go there on holiday. Crimea expects as many as six million tourists this year.

As traffic across the bridge grows, the Russian government is considering building a highway and tunnel system across the Crimean Peninsula liked to the new crossing.

The largest metro construction firm in the country, Mosmetrostroy, is looking to build a tunnel in the Crimea which would resemble Moscow’s ring-road. The new highway will speed up traffic across the Crimean Bridge.

At 19 kilometers long, the Crimean Bridge is the longest in Europe. It begins on the Taman Peninsula, passes over a 5km dam and Tuzla Island, crosses the Kerch Strait and reaches the Crimean coast. Before the bridge was built, the only connections between Crimea and the other parts of Russia were through ferry services and air traffic.

– RT

[omgnewsy-blog]

Deaths Now In Nigeria Drinking Water From Veolia, Flint

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/1669-2/

Deaths Now In Nigeria Drinking Water From Veolia, Flint

Activists are concerned that Veolia, the company linked with the Flint, Michigan water crisis, is on the shortlist to manage two-thirds of water system in Lagos, Nigeria, where many children die from water-borne diseases.

“I feel Veolia is a snake, and they slithered over to Lagos to try to increase their profit margins,” Nayyirah Shariff, director at Flint Rising activist group, told BuzzFeed News. “They have a history of poisoning black communities in the US, and they should not be poisoning the largest African city on the continent.”

The campaigner said she was “shocked and extremely angry” when she found out that the French-owned water management company is among the three bidders for the Adiyan II project in the Nigerian capital, Lagos, which is the seventh largest city in the world.

The megacity of 21 million people suffers from lack of access to drinkable piped water. Lagos also has one of the highest child death rates from water-borne diseases.

In hopes of improving the situation, local officials are considering partnerships with private companies from abroad. The idea itself is controversial. Nigerian environmental and human rights NGOs are protesting against the privatization of the water sector, citing distrust of large multinational corporations and concern over government corruption. They are drawing attention to high-profile controversies surrounding Veolia and the two other top bidders, Spanish company Abengoa and Dubai-based Metito, overseas. The Emirati firm is linked to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which sparked protests from Native Americans, while Abengoa’s management caused protests and riots in Bolivia.

In July, 23 US lawmakers, many of whom are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote a letter in solidarity with the Nigerian activists, decrying water privatization.

The proposed privatization “introduces significant governance challenges that can erode democratic control and oversight, including the government’s ability to regulate in the public interest,” the lawmakers warned. A similar letter was penned in Congress in 2015.

Last year, state-owned Lagos Water Corporation (LWC), tasked with overseeing the bidding, flatly dismissed reports that the three finalists “failed” in other countries, calling accusations leveled against them “a blatant falsehood.”

Speaking to BuzzFeed News, a manager at LWC said that the “checks and balances” in the procurement process will “ensure that the public is not paying for the inefficiency of the investor.”

The campaigners, both in Flint and in Nigeria, insist that the state government’s assurances are not enough. They argue that Veolia’s North American branch is currently being sued for its alleged role in water contamination in Flint, Michigan. In the lawsuit, filed by the state of Michigan, the company is accused of professional negligence, fraud, and public nuisance for allegedly falsifying the studies on the town’s water system and making fraudulent statements. Veolia denies the allegations of wrongdoing.

The crisis, which started in 2014, caused massive lead poisoning, resulting in long-lasting health problems for residents. Among the reported effects from drinking the water in Flint was a spike in fetal deaths and a dramatic deterioration in local children’s reading abilities.

Activists fear Veolia’s involvement in Nigeria can end with a similar crisis, but on a larger scale and with more victims. “I know with the population of Lagos, it’s just going to have a larger inverse impact on when Veolia f**ks up – because it’s going to happen,” Flint-based campaigner Shariff said, cited by Buzzfeed News.

Tunji Buhari, a water project officer with the local NGO in Lagos, stressed that “Veolia are the company behind Flint” and that should be alarming. “Why do you want to embark on this dangerous experiment, which is bound to fail?”

– RT

[omgnewsy-blog]

Skin Bleaching In Africa: An 'Addiction' With Risks

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/skin-bleaching-in-africa-an-addiction-with-risks/

Skin Bleaching In Africa: An 'Addiction' With Risks

Dr. Isima Sobande was in medical school when she first heard of mothers who bleached the skin of their babies. She dismissed it as an urban myth. But it wasn’t long before she saw it with her own eyes.

At a health centre in Lagos, a mother brought in a two-month-old infant who was crying in pain.

“He had very large boils all over his body,” the soft-spoken 27-year-old Nigerian told AFP. “It seemed like they weren’t normal.”

The baby’s mother explained that she had mixed a steroid cream with shea butter and slathered his skin with it in order to make it whiter.

“I was very appalled. It was distressing,” said Sobande.

Shocked, the young doctor now takes a different view on skin bleaching, also called lightening or whitening.

For many Nigerians, it is a “standard procedure,” a gateway to beauty and success, she said.

“It’s a mindset that has eaten into society. For a lot of people, it’s the path to getting a good job, having a relationship.”

– Africa risk – Skin lightening is popular in many parts of the world, including South Asia and the Middle East.

But medical experts say that in Africa — a continent where regulations are often lax or scorned — the widening phenomenon is laden with health risks.

Cultural watchdogs, for their part, see it as the toxic legacy of colonialism.

Africa is experiencing a “massive trend of increased use (of skin bleaching), particularly in teenagers and young adults,” said Lester Davids, a physiology professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

“The older generation used creams — the new generation uses pills and injectables. The horror is that we do not know what these things do in high concentrations over time in the body.”

Where statistics about Africa’s skin-bleaching industry exist, they are often old or unreliable.

But evidence from the range of products, suppliers and services points to a continent-wide market that may number tens of millions of people and possibly more.

In Nigeria alone, 77 per cent of women — by extrapolation, more than 60 million people — are using lightening products on a “regular basis”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in 2011.

– Bootleg creams – Experts say the African market is rapidly expanding as companies seek to cash in on the continent’s booming youth population.

“More clients want insight on the lightening market,” said Rubab Abdoolla, a beauty analyst at market researchers Euromonitor International.

The rich tend to opt for pricier registered products which are available in standard doses.

Others are likely to buy creams, often bootleg concoctions mixed in the back streets, that may be dangerous and are blatantly sold in defiance of official bans or constraints.

Ingredients may include hydroquinone, steroids, mercury and lead — the same element that, at high doses, poisoned Elizabethan courtiers who powdered their faces ivory white.

“These chemicals damage respiratory, kidney and reproductive systems,” an official from the Nigerian drug control agency warned. “They cause cancer, affect the nervous system, deform unborn babies.”

In spite of the risks, authorities are struggling to control the bleaching innovations, which include a compound called glutathione, taken as injections or pills.

Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya have all banned skin bleaching products with high amounts of hydroquinone and mercury, with the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa urging people to “reject all colonial notions of beauty”.

In July, Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority issued a statement telling pregnant women not to take glutathione pills to bleach their unborn babies saying that there may be “serious toxic side effects” such as “asthma, renal failure and chest pains.”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stresses that it has not given approval for any of the injections on the market today.

“These products are potentially unsafe and ineffective, and might contain unknown harmful ingredients or contaminants.”

– ‘Addiction’ – Those who start using skin lightening say they invariably stay with the practice.

“Before you know it, it has become some sort of an addiction where you want to maintain that look,” said Dabota Lawson, a Lagos socialite and cosmetics entrepreneur.

“Just like with plastic surgery, it begins to feel like it’s never enough.”

In Lagos, the creams are assembled by a legion of cosmetologists and sold at a price anywhere from 5,000 naira to 20,000 naira ($14-55, 12-47 euros), a prohibitive amount in a country where the minimum wage is just 18,000 naira ($50, 42 euros).

Instagram skincare star Pela Okiemute’s “Russian White” body cream claims to give “firmness, intense beauty and a mixed race complexion”.

His “Cleopatra Royal” cream, whose label features Elizabeth Taylor in her famous role as the Egyptian queen, promises to “lighten and radiate”.

Customers should start seeing results in two weeks, says Okiemute, explaining that his creams, which include collagen, kojic acid and “anti-ageing” snail slime are safe, though he declined to divulge his formula.

“We have a lot of customers who have used a lot of wrong products, they come to us and we give solutions,” he says.

He flicked through his phone to show before-and-after photos of a client who had a problem with dark knuckles, a telltale sign of a skin bleacher.

Intravenous injections and pills of glutathione — an antioxidant naturally found in the body that has a lightening side effect — are the new frontiers of skin bleaching.

At his clinic on the outskirts of Lagos, beside an abandoned Chinese restaurant, plastic surgeon Aranmolate Ayobami charges clients 150,000 naira ($415, 350 euros) for a five-week course of glutathione injections.

Known as the “Buttmaster” for helping patients seeking an hourglass figure, Ayobami buys the injections from companies he trusts in the United Arab Emirates or the United States.

He only gives certain dosages for a limited amount of time, he said.

But sometimes clients will bring in their own cheaper product that they bought online and urge him to inject them. “We try to discourage that,” he said.

– #Melaninpoppin – If many millions of Africans lighten their skin without regret, others are dismayed.

“Skin bleaching is one manifestation of folks trying to get power and privilege aligned with whiteness,” said Yaba Blay, a researcher at North Carolina Central University.

“We’re seeing folks attempt to be perceived as having more value because of their complexion.”

Recent black movements are trying to challenge that perception.

#Melaninpoppin, a hashtag celebrating black skin, and the smash-hit movie “Black Panther,” which featured an almost all-black cast wearing African-inspired outfits and natural hair, are held up as testaments to a shift away from longstanding Eurocentric standards of beauty.

But whether the tide of opinion is turning in Africa itself is another question.

“The truth for me was that my beauty was more accepted abroad than at home,” said Ajuma Nasenyana, a model from northern Kenya, who has walked for Victoria’s Secret and Vivienne Westwood.

“In the African industry the lighter your skin tone the more beautiful you are. Hopefully the industry is changing and starting to appreciate darker skin.”

Sobande, the doctor, said, “We’re living in a more positive environment than a few years before.

“But it’s going to take a lot of effort to change the mindset.”

– AFP

[omgnewsy-blog]

How Pinduoduo Founder Colin Huang Became China's Youngest Self-Made Billionaire

New Post has been published on https://omgnewsy.com/how-pinduoduo-founder-colin-huang-became-china-youngest-self-made-billionaire/

How Pinduoduo Founder Colin Huang Became China's Youngest Self-Made Billionaire

Ringing the opening bell on Wall Street to mark the public trading debut of your company would be a dream come true for most entrepreneurs – but not for Colin Huang.

His mainland Chinese social commerce company Pinduoduo started trading on the Nasdaq last week, making Huang China’s youngest self made billionaire with a net worth of US$9.89 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index. Huang, founder and chief executive of the company, wasn’t there for the opening bell though.

In fact, he did not even travel to New York to witness the historic moment, choosing to stay in Shanghai with investors and customers to participate in a simultaneous remote bell-ringing ceremony.

“We wanted to let more of our customers take part in ringing the bell, but it might have been a bit of a hassle to arrange visas for all of them to travel to the US. Isn’t it better that consumers, investors, all of us, myself included, be here [in Shanghai]?” Colin Huang told mainland Chinese media on the day, adding that he prefers to avoid long-haul travel to prevent the recurrence of an ear infection.

Colin Huang, an ex-Google employee, is a serial entrepreneur. Pinduoduo, now worth some US$21.1 billion, is the 38 year-old’s fourth company, after a string of successful previous ventures.

The idea for Pinduoduo, which melds the social aspect of sharing and messaging together with online group-buying, came to Huang when he observed how China’s high penetration of mobile devices was changing the way people lived, including enabling them to make payments via mobile devices, he said in a recent video interview with Tencent News.

Like Alibaba Group’s Taobao e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo allows merchants to sell items such as women’s fashion, fresh fruit and vegetables, and even electronics. The difference is that users who click into a Pinduoduo listing will be able to get the product at a cheaper price if they share it with someone else in a “group buy” deal.

The social commerce model is part of the social+ model often adopted by internet companies in China, where business and social aspects are blended together to appeal to Chinese users, according to the China Internet Report co-authored by the South China Morning Post, Abacus and 500 Start-ups. Pinduoduo declined an interview request and did not respond to a request for comment as it was in an official quiet period.

The meteoric rise of social commerce company Pinduoduo in China’s trillion-dollar e-commerce market has taken many by surprise, since the industry has long been dominated by incumbents Alibaba and JD.com. (Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.) Within just three years, Pinduoduo has accrued some 300 million consumers and racked up gross merchandise volumes of over 140 billion yuan (US$20.5 billion) in 2017, making it the third-largest e-commerce company in China by sales numbers.

Huang, who regards Duan Yongping, founder of retail chain Bubugao as a mentor, has rubbed shoulders with many of China’s legendary entrepreneurs, including NetEase’s Ding Lei, Alibaba co-founder Sun Tongyu, and SF Express founder Wang Wei – all of whom have reportedly made angel investments in Pinduoduo. In 2006, Huang even had lunch with legendary US investor Warren Buffett, according to Caijing magazine.

While Huang may now be a billionaire, his roots are nothing if not humble. He was born in 1980 to factory worker parents on the outskirts of Hangzhou, the city that is home to China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba.

As a child, Huang demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics, winning a medal in a Mathematics Olympiad competition and receiving admission into Hangzhou Foreign Languages School, an elite high school in Zhejiang province.

It was during high school that Huang started interacting with other students who came from wealthier backgrounds. At the time the daughter of Hangzhou’s mayor was his classmate, and he grew more confident and comfortable interacting with some of the brightest, most powerful people in China. “Compared to other schools, we were exposed to the western culture and influence much earlier, deeper and to a greater extent,” Huang recounted in a post on his WeChat account.

At the age of 18 he went to study computer science at the prestigious Zhejiang University, where he was selected as one of the few Chinese fellows during his freshman year to be part of the Melton Foundation, established by Verifone founder Bill Melton.

Huang also interned at Microsoft’s Beijing office, where he drew a salary of 6,000 yuan, he said in an interview with Bloomberg. “At the time … [my internship salary] was already more than the salary of my mum,” he said.

Huang’s journey to the US began when he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin for a master’s in computer science. His professor, impressed with Huang’s performance, had written him recommendation letters for the biggest tech giants of the early 2000s – Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. He received job offers from all three, but turned down all of them to apply for a job at Google in 2004, the same year the search engine company went public.

“Microsoft was very established. [Back then] if you wanted to get a green card it was probably the best place to go,” Huang said. He opted for the uncertainty of joining an internet start-up and his gamble paid off.

In the three years that Huang was an engineer at Google, the company’s shares jumped from U$85 to more than US$500, and his options were worth a fortune, giving him what he called “basic financial freedom”.

Huang moved back to China in 2006, around the height of Google’s battle with Baidu for search engine dominance in the country. But he soon tired of flying back and forth for the smallest of matters that required signing off from Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The straw that broke the camel’s back, according to Huang’s retelling of the story to Bloomberg, was when he travelled across the Pacific to get them to sign off in person on changing the colour and font size of the Chinese characters displayed in the search results. He resigned soon after.

By 2007, Huang was back in China and striking out on his own, starting an e-commerce site called Ouku that sold consumer electronics and home appliances. He sold the venture in 2010, then started his second company Leqi, which helped foreign brands market their stores on popular e-commerce platforms like Tmall and JD.com.

His third company was a gaming studio called Xunmeng that created web-based role-playing games. At the time, it offered games that featured scantily clad female characters who could fight alongside the players. While not illegal, any erotic or sexually suggestive content is a grey area in China, a heavily censored society.

By the time Huang decided to start Pinduoduo, he already considered himself financially independent.

“I’ve never thought of changing the world, I just want to do things properly step by step. If I can change the way people go about things in their daily lives, I think that’s already not too bad,” he told Tencent News.

By the time Huang launched Pinduoduo in 2015, the e-commerce space in China was already dominated by Alibaba and JD.com. But Huang, armed with experience in e-commerce as well as games, saw a way to gamify the online buying experience.

At first glance, the Pinduoduo app seems like any other e-commerce platform. Products are split into categories – fashion, shoes and bags, mother and baby, food, electronics, even automobiles. Clicking into a category, say electronics, brings up a list of products together with its discounted prices – a Wifi router for 65.8 yuan, a 6.1-inch, 128GB Android smartphone for 588 yuan.

The catch is that you only get the discounted price if you manage to get someone to purchase the item as well, and so users either share the deal with friends on messaging platform WeChat, convincing them to buy the item as well, or pair up with a stranger to buy the items together.

The majority of its users come from lower tier Chinese cities, where salaries are lower and people are not as affluent, according to data from research institute Jiguang. However consumers from these markets could prove to be very lucrative for Pinduoduo. A Goldman Sachs report last year estimated that 71 per cent of Chinese who will begin shopping online in the next few years will come from lower-tier cities. In 2015, e-commerce spending in lower-tier cities also surpassed first and second tier cities for the first time, according to a McKinsey report.

“The online shopping market in top-tier cities are already occupied by big players, whereas the lower-tier cities still have large potential. Due to the relatively lower housing prices, living costs and work pressure in lower-tier cities, people living in those areas are more willing to spend money and time on these internet products,” said Neil Wang, Greater China president of consultancy Frost and Sullivan.

Pinduoduo also draws users in via other gamification features. There is a section displaying offers exclusive only to new users, such as lipstick for just 1 yuan, or a barbeque grill for 49.9 yuan.

In another section called “Slash the price and get it for free”, users are shown a list of products – a smart robot worth 72 yuan, for example. After clicking into the listing they see the price has been reduced by 9.34 yuan. By sharing the listing with more friends, they can further reduce the price, the app states. The aim is to get as many friends as possible to click on the listing to get the price down to zero, although this gets progressively harder as the reduction in price for every friend who clicks gets smaller each time.

In a way, this gamification approach has helped promote Pinduoduo by word-of-mouth. Friends who receive a link to buy an item on Pinduoduo can already see that items are cheap, so they are compelled to check out the app themselves. Those who receive requests to help slash the price of an item wonder if they too can get products for free. Across the country, swathes of users have created groups on WeChat dedicated to helping each other slash prices on Pinduoduo.

George Tang, a 31 year old engineer from Delingha city in Qinghai province, says he has spent about 6,000 yuan over the past two years buying items on Pinduoduo, including 148 yuan for a remote-controlled helicopter, 29.90 yuan for 4 kilograms of Vietnamese mangoes, and some oysters for just 82 yuan.

“Most of the items I buy on Pinduoduo are fresh food but sometimes I buy toys for my child and some daily essentials,” Tang said. “Ninety-five per cent of the time the products are as described on the listings, but perhaps because where I live is more remote, it takes a longer for things to be delivered so sometimes the food doesn’t arrive in great shape.”

Pinduoduo has long been plagued with complaints that it trades quality for price, allowing merchants to offer inferior products at rock-bottom prices to capitalise on the platforms’ popularity. Since its public listing in late July, the company has also seen a slew of negative press reports calling it out for allowing counterfeit and imitation products on the platform.

US diaper brand Daddy’s Choice slapped it with a trademark infringement lawsuit before the listing while Chinese television maker Skyworth said Pinduoduo had been carrying many counterfeit Skyworth-branded items on the platform, and asked the company to take them down.

Last week, China’s markets regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), called on relevant authorities to launch an investigation into the complaints received about Pinduoduo’s counterfeit and imitation products. Pinduoduo later issued a statement saying it would co-operate with authorities and implement stronger mechanisms to weed out such products from its site. The company’s share price, which traded as high as US$27.54 in its debut, dipped to its offering price of US$19 after news of the probe broke.

“What companies like Alibaba experienced when they started out is also something we have to go through,” Huang said.

Alibaba has spent millions of dollars in its efforts to fight counterfeits, including using artificial intelligence systems that can automatically identify, take down and block listings that appear to be knockoff or counterfeit goods.

Whether Pinduoduo’s rapid rise to fame turns out to be a flash in the pan or it becomes a genuine competitor to incumbents like Alibaba and JD.com remains to be seen, according to Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group.

Some of its most popular products are commoditised items like toilet paper or laundry detergent.

“Many consumers are looking for better value and are becoming more price sensitive on items they don’t care about,” said Rein. “When you’re not rich, you don’t care what toilet paper you use to wipe your butt.”

– s c m p

[omgnewsy-blog]

Passengers Recount Escape From Burning Mexican Plane

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/passengers-recount-escape-from-burning-mexican-plane/

Passengers Recount Escape From Burning Mexican Plane

Shortly after boarding her flight in the northern Mexican state of Durango afternoon on Tuesday afternoon, Ashley Garcia had a premonition that something was wrong.

The 17-year-old high school student from Northlake, a suburb of Chicago, was one of 65 U.S. citizens among the 103 passengers and crew aboard the Aeromexico passenger jet that crashed near the runway shortly after take-off.

Settling into her seat, Garcia saw a storm was gathering fast in the distance, and by the time the aircraft began preparing for takeoff it was battered by strong winds, hail and rain. Garcia captured the scene through her window with her cellphone.

“I had a gut feeling: just record it, just record it,” said Garcia. “I was like, there’s no way we are taking off, it’s too risky.”

Mexican Plane

The flight crashed moments after taking off, skidding to a halt in scrubland near the runway, a wing in flames. Passengers described how they followed escape procedures, enabling everyone to evacuate without any fatalities.

“We had been told so many times what to do,” Garcia said of the safety protocol passengers around the world are taught every time they board a plane. “No one ever thinks it’s going to happen until it happens to them. We were there for each other… That’s how we were able to get off safely.”

Investigators found the Embraer passenger jet’s recorders on Wednesday and have still to determine the cause of the crash. Aeromexico said 64 people have been released from hospitals. Two people, including the pilot, were more seriously injured.

Garcia was returning to the United States with three cousins after a two-week trip to visit relatives, travelling from Durango to Mexico City to catch a connecting flight to Chicago.

Liliana Gallarzo, Garcia’s cousin, thought the bumpy take-off was turbulence until the aircraft began skidding and panic set in.

“We were screaming,” said Gallarzo, a 19-year-old college student from Chicago. “Everyone was trying to get away from the plane, trying to get out.”

They smelled the smoke right away. But the cousins were seated in the middle of the cabin, and passengers were exiting from the front and rear doors, as the emergency exits in the middle of the plane were unused due to the fire near the wing, Garcia said.

Filing behind fellow travellers, they made their way toward the rear as the aircraft filled with smoke. Garcia grabbed her phone but left her luggage behind, losing her glasses in the shuffle.

When they reached the exit, there were no emergency slides, meaning they had to jump, Garcia said. A trampoline was there to cushion their fall, and fellow passengers helped them make the jump.

Passengers Recount Escape From Burning Mexican Plane

Once off the plane, Garcia coughed and vomited, choking for air. A flight attendant directed the cousins to get as far away as possible from the plane, which was soon engulfed by the fire, leaving only smouldering wreckage after firefighters extinguished the blaze. They walked through the rain, their clothes soaked.

After waiting for further direction, they headed closer to the runway, where firefighters, paramedics and other emergency personnel sprang into action, checking passengers for injuries. Suffering from minor scratches and bruises, Garcia was taken to the hospital, where she underwent X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before returning home that night.

She said the compassion shown to her by emergency personnel affirmed her desire to be a police officer. She has a flight home booked for Friday.

“I didn’t think I would be able to get back on a flight, but I have experienced the worst,” Garcia said. “So now whatever happens, it’s meant to happen.”

– Reuters

[omgnewsy-blog]

Worms Unfrozen After 42,000 Years Are Alive And Eating

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/worms-unfrozen-after-42000-years-are-alive-and-eating/

Worms Unfrozen After 42,000 Years Are Alive And Eating

Two worms that have been frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years have come back to life, and are now considered the oldest living animals on the planet, in what is being described as a major scientific breakthrough.

The ancient nematodes (aka roundworms) are “moving and eating” again for the first time since the Pleistocene age, after coming back to life in Petri dishes, according to a new study by a team of Russian scientists in collaboration with Princeton University.

“We have obtained the first data demonstrating the capability of multicellular organisms for longterm cryobiosis in permafrost deposits of the Arctic,” wrote the study’s authors.

Some 300 prehistoric worms were defrosted in a laboratory at The Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow and analysed for the study. Two females have since “showed signs of life” in a small –but groundbreaking– victory for the researchers involved.

“Our data demonstrates the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) cryobiosis under the conditions of natural cryoconservation,” said the scientists involved in the study to The Siberian Times.

“It is obvious that this ability suggests that the Pleistocene nematodes have some adaptive mechanisms that may be of scientific and practical importance for the related fields of science, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology, and astrobiology.”

Both worms came from two areas in Yakutia, the coldest region in Russia. One, believed to be about 32,000-years-old, came from an squirrel burrow in a permafrost wall close to Pleistocene Park. The other, around 47,000 years old, was found in permafrost near the Alazeya River in 2015.

-rt

[omgnewsy-blog]

North Koreans Eat Dog Meat to Beat the Summer Heat

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/north-koreans-eat-dog-meat-to-beat-the-summer-heat/

North Koreans Eat Dog Meat to Beat the Summer Heat

In North Korea, summer is not a good time to be a dog. In the sizzling heat, North Korea’s biggest brewery is pumping out twice as much beer as usual, Pyongyang residents are lining up to get their “bingsu” — a syrupy treat made with shaved ice — and restaurants are serving up bowl after bowl of the season’s biggest culinary attraction: spicy dog meat soup.

Euphemistically known as “dangogi,” or sweet meat, dog has long been believed to be a stamina food in North and South Korea and is traditionally eaten during the hottest time of the year, giving a sad twist to the old saying “dog days of summer.”

The dates are fixed according to the lunar calendar and dog meat consumption centers around the “sambok,” or three hottest days — July 17 and 27, and Aug. 16 this year. Demand appears to be especially high this year because of a heatwave in East Asia. Temperatures in the North have been among the highest ever recorded, hovering near 40 degree Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in several cities.

As is the case with almost everything, good statistics are not available for how much dog is eaten in the North.

But in South Korea, where even President Moon Jae-in has dogs as pets, at least 2 million canines are slaughtered and eaten each year even though its popularity as food is waning. While many older South Koreans believe dog meat aids virility, younger people generally are either against the practice or indifferent to it and there has been increasing pressure to ban it altogether.

On both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, dogs used for their meat are raised on farms for that express purpose.

“It’s been our national food since olden times,” explained Kim Ae Kyong, a waitress at the Pyongyang House of Sweet Meat, the largest dog specialty restaurant in the North Korean capital. “People believe that heat cures heat, so they eat dog meat and spicy dog soup on the hottest days. It’s healthier than other kinds of meat.”

The restaurant’s menu lists more than a dozen dog dishes, including ribs, hind legs and boiled dog skin.

Like their neighbors to the South, North Korean attitudes toward dogs are changing.

It is increasingly common to see people walking their dogs on leashes in Pyongyang and other cities in the North, a trend that seems to have just begun to catch on over the past few years. Feral dogs are common in the countryside, however, and left to fend for themselves.

How leader Kim Jong Un feels about all this isn’t known.

But in January he made a point of donating 30 pet dogs of seven breeds — including a bulldog — to Pyongyang’s newly renovated Central Zoo, where dogs are put on display much like the wild animals. The canine center at the zoo is, in fact, one of its most popular attractions, and posters near the cages explain how to properly care for and feed — not eat — canine companions.

– AP

[omgnewsy-blog]

Britain Treaty With Portugal Over Macau Residents Denied Hongkongers UK Passport

New Post has been published on https://omgnewsy.com/britain-treaty-with-portugal-over-macau-residents-denied-hongkongers-uk-passport/

Britain Treaty With Portugal Over Macau Residents Denied Hongkongers UK Passport

Britain repeatedly put pressure on Portugal not to grant nationality to its colonial residents in Macau to prevent Hongkongers asking for the same treatment ahead of the two cities’ return to Chinese rule, recently declassified documents have revealed.

Tensions between the countries in 1985 – as Portugal prepared to join the European Community, now the European Union – came to light via British cabinet files from the National Archives in London, which were made available in July.

Activists in Hong Kong said the documents once again highlighted how “disgraceful” Britain had been in its treatment of the colony’s citizens in the period leading up to the 1997 handover.

London had refused to confer residency rights on all but 50,000 Hongkongers and their families, granting others only the British National (Overseas) passport, which did not come with the right of abode.

BN(O) passport holders have the right to land in Britain and enjoy a six-month stay as a visitor. They may be qualified to register to vote in parliamentary and local government elections if they fulfil certain requirements and can receive consular assistance from Britain outside Hong Kong.

Files studied by the Post revealed that then British home secretary Douglas Hurd had urged his colleagues to persuade Lisbon to tighten its criteria for granting Portuguese nationality to Macau residents.

In a letter dated October 1985 to then foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe, Hurd warned that any residents who got hold of a Portuguese passport in Macau would be able to live and work in Britain or any part of the European Community.

It was estimated about 85,000 Macau residents would be entitled to nationality, but Hurd feared there would be more.

“With Macau perhaps returning to the control of China at the same time as Hong Kong, it may well be that there will be many Macanese of Portuguese nationality who will decide that Europe rather than Macau is the place to be,” Hurd wrote.

“Moreover, Hong Kong [British Dependant Territories Citizens] may try to obtain Portuguese passports by whatever means in order to gain a right of entry to the United Kingdom.”

Britain Treaty With Portugal Over Macau Residents Denied Hongkongers UK Passport

Hurd also noted: “Surely it is clear that we may come under some pressure, because of the position of Portuguese nationals in Macau, to allow freer access to the United Kingdom to Hong Kong [British Dependent Territories Citizens] than is presently permitted.”

But he insisted Britain should resist such pressure even though that would likely attract a lot of adverse criticism.

“With Macau perhaps returning to the control of China at the same time as Hong Kong, it may well be that there will be many Macanese of Portuguese nationality who will decide that Europe rather than Macau is the place to be,” Hurd wrote.

“Moreover, Hong Kong [British Dependant Territories Citizens] may try to obtain Portuguese passports by whatever means in order to gain a right of entry to the United Kingdom.”

Hurd also noted: “Surely it is clear that we may come under some pressure, because of the position of Portuguese nationals in Macau, to allow freer access to the United Kingdom to Hong Kong [British Dependent Territories Citizens] than is presently permitted.”

But he insisted Britain should resist such pressure even though that would likely attract a lot of adverse criticism.

Macau returned to Chinese rule in 1999. Passports – that came with full citizenship rights – were granted to anyone born before November 20, 1981, and Portuguese nationality could be passed on to their children.

This effectively offered Macau Chinese the right to live and work in Portugal and other European countries – a right which many Hongkongers have argued they should also be entitled to.

This claim was renewed last year when former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, a co-founder of the London-based Hong Kong Watch group, urged Britain to offer BN(O) passport holders the right of abode if the city’s situation deteriorated in the future amid further integration with China.

“The declassified files highlight how low and disgraceful Britain was in treating Hongkongers. The reality had already demonstrated that what Britain had been worrying about did not happen – Macau residents had not flooded into Britain [despite being offered Portuguese nationality],” said lawyer Craig Choy Ki, from a concern group advocating equal treatment for BN(O) passport holders.

“Britain should rectify its mistakes before it is too late.”

Choy said political oppression in Hong Kong, such as the recent proposal to ban a pro-independence party, had made the fight more meaningful than ever.

“I have a feeling that perhaps it is easier to fight for the right of abode than to implement democracy in Hong Kong,” he said.

Choy argued that offering BN(O) holders the right of abode would not be a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration – as has been suggested by officials from both sides – because it was mentioned only in the memorandum but not in the main articles of the treaty between the British and Chinese governments setting out the terms of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty.

His group – which comprises about 10 activists and lawyers – also called on Britain to offer BN(O) holders the right to work in Britain and the right to enjoy the same visa-free arrangements for entering other countries as British citizens.

Democratic Party veteran and former lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing, who as a journalist in 1984 took then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to task for “delivering over five million people into the hands of a communist dictatorship”, described the behaviour revealed in the files as totally disgraceful and shameless – though not surprising.

“The BN(O) holders in Hong Kong have to stand up and fight for their rights,” she said.

– S C M P

[omgnewsy-blog]

'Keep Us in Prayer. We Are Going to Need It': Tia Coleman Speaks Out

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/keep-us-in-prayer-we-are-going-to-need-it-tia-coleman/

'Keep Us in Prayer. We Are Going to Need It': Tia Coleman Speaks Out

A woman whose nine family members were among the 17 people killed when a tourist duck boat capsized in a storm on a Missouri lake said on Saturday she is not sure if there is any way to recover from such a loss.

“Keep us in prayer. We are going to need it,” Tia Coleman, who lost her husband, three children and other relatives, told a news conference from a hospital in Branson, Missouri, where she was taken after the Thursday incident.

An amphibious duck boat was carrying 31 passengers including children when a sudden “microburst” storm packing powerful winds hit Table Rock Lake outside Branson, unleashing white-cap waves that swamped the vessel before it sank.

Tia Coleman Duck Boat Survivor – A Mother Who Lost 9 Relatives

Coleman said she plunged deep into the lake and did not know how she was able to survive. She thanked people she dubbed “angels” who jumped into the water and helped pull her to safety. Her nephew also survived.

Choking back tears, Coleman talked about the family members she lost, including her two sons and one-year-old daughter Arya.

“She had a thousand personalities wrapped up in her one,” Coleman said.

Tia Coleman Duck Boat Survivor – Mother Who Lost 9 Relatives

“Going home is going to be completely difficult. I don’t know how I am going to do it. Since I have had a home, it has always been filled with little feet and laughter,” she said.

Coleman said the boat’s captain pointed out the life jackets but told those aboard there was no need for them. Coleman said if she could have reached the life jackets, she believes she could have saved her children.

She had nothing to say to the captain, who was among the survivors.

“I don’t know if there is a recovery from this,” she said.

At least three other people remained hospitalized in Branson in stable and fair conditions, local media reported.

Representatives from the CoxHealth Branson hospital and local Stone County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Missouri Boat Crash Prayers

Federal safety officials and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident.

Jim Pattison, president of Ripley Entertainment, which owns the Branson “Ride The Ducks” tour company, told CBS This Morning on Friday that the strength of the storm was unexpected and the duck boats should not have been on the lake.

Two of the World War Two-style amphibious duck boat vehicles were out on the lake and headed back to shore, but only one made it. The dead were aged one to 70 and came from six U.S. states. Seven of the 14 survivors were injured and taken to the hospital, authorities said.

More than three dozen people have died in incidents involving duck boats on land and water in the United States over the past two decades. Thursday’s disaster in Missouri came just four days after passengers aboard a regular tour boat off Hawaii’s Big Island were pelted with “lava bombs” that left several with third-degree burns and a woman’s leg broken.

Tia Coleman Speaks Out – KOLR10 News

– Reuters

[omgnewsy-blog]

Butt-Enhancement Surgeon Vanishes After Death of a Patient

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/butt-enhancement-surgeon-vanishes-after-death-of-a-patient/

Butt-Enhancement Surgeon Vanishes After Death of a Patient

A Brazilian celebrity butt-enhancement surgeon called Dr. Bumbum has gone on the run following the death of a patient just hours after undergoing cosmetic surgery at his home in Rio de Janeiro.

Denis Furtado was considered capable of performing magic on women’s bodies, in particular their bottoms, and became known throughout the country for his expertise.

The 45-year-old’s Instagram account reflects his popularity with 650,000 followers.

But now he is wanted by police after Lilian Quezia Calixto died just hours after a butt enlargement procedure at his home in the swanky Barra de Tijuca neighborhood.

Calixto had travelled 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) from her home in Cuiaba to see the surgeon to the stars.

Lilian Calixto, 46, fell ill shortly after receiving buttock enhancing injections

But following the controversial injection of acrylic glass filler, Calixto started feeling ill.

Upon arriving at hospital on Sunday, she was suffering from a racing heart-beat and hypertension, and after four heart attacks she died.

Soon after, Furtado disappeared and is now wanted for homicide and criminal association, while his girlfriend, who some media claim was also his assistant, has been detained.

The news has caused shock waves throughout the industry — Brazil is second only to the United States for the number of plastic surgeries carried out.

The Brazilian Plastic Surgery Society (SBPC) was quick to denounce Furtado, saying “the growing invasion of non-specialists in the specialty has provoked more and more fatalities like this one.”

Brazil’s Dr Bumbum Denis Furtado

“You cannot perform plastic surgery inside an apartment. Many people are selling a dream, a fantasy to patients in an unethical way and people, weakened, are often attracted to low prices, without considering whether or not the conditions are adequate,” SBPC president Niveo Steffen told AFP.

Steffen said the injection of synthetic biopolymers or polymers, like acrylic glass, is very dangerous and has caused dozens of deaths among women in Latin America, especially in Venezuela.

He said Furtado’s case demonstrates the “trivialization of cosmetic procedures by unspecialized professionals, who often aren’t doctors and are putting people at risk.”

According to the G1 internet site, Furtado has been charged by police four times for illegally practicing medicine and crimes against consumers.

– afp

[omgnewsy-blog]

Breastfeeding Model Mara Martin Causes Stir on Catwalk

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/breastfeeding-model-mara-martin-causes-stir-on-catwalk/

Breastfeeding Model Mara Martin Causes Stir on Catwalk

A model breastfeeding her baby on the catwalk has caused a stir among those gathered at a fashion show in Miami.

Mara Martin held her five-month-old daughter Aria at Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit show on Sunday.

“I can’t believe I am waking up to headlines with me and my daughter in them for doing something I do every day,” Mara Martin wrote on her Instagram page.

Many social media users praised the model as “inspiring”, but some accused her of attention seeking.

Ms Martin was one of 16 finalists chosen for this year’s show in an open casting.

She appeared on the catwalk in a gold bikini, breastfeeding Aria at the same time.

Breastfeeding model Mara Martin held her five-month-old daughter Aria at Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit show

The baby had headphones on to protect her from the noise of music and the crowd.

“My story of being a mother and feeding her while walking is just that,” the model wrote later.

On Mara Martin Instagram page, many users left messages of support.

“So inspiring!!!! Love this!!!!” wrote one, while another noted: “Yeasss!!! Thank you for being brave and helping to #normalizebreastfeeding!! This makes me so happy!”

But some users were left unimpressed.

“Why would you do this? My guess is attention you might be lacking?” and “No….just….no…” were their messages.

– bbc

[omgnewsy-blog]

Tess Talley Happy Killing Of Rare Giraffe Backfires

New Post has been published on http://omgnewsy.com/tess-talley-happy-killing-of-rare-giraffe-backfires/

Tess Talley Happy Killing Of Rare Giraffe Backfires

Images of a Kentucky hunter posing with the body of a black giraffe she killed in South Africa have triggered an online backlash after going viral on social media.

Thousands of Twitter users expressed outrage at Tess Thompson Talley, 37, for killing the giraffe on a hunting trip last summer.

“Prayers for my once-in-a-lifetime dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile,” Talley wrote in a since-deleted post on Facebook, according to USA Today.

The post said the animal was more than 18 years old, weighed 1,820kg and yielded 900kg of meat. On average, giraffes have a 25-year lifespan, according to National Geographic.

Efforts to reach Talley for comment were unsuccessful.

The pictures went viral only recently after being reposted on Twitter last month by the website Africalandpost. The online condemnation was swift.

Debra Messing, an actress best known for her role in the NBC TV series Will and Grace, described Talley on Instagram as a “disgusting, vile, amoral, heartless, selfish murderer.”

Comedian Ricky Gervais, who often posts about animal conservation issues, called Talley a profanity on Twitter and lamented giraffes being endangered.

Talley defended herself in an email to Fox News in a story posted on its website, saying the giraffe was a member of a South African subspecies that is not rare.

“The numbers of this subspecies is actually increasing due, in part, to hunters and conservation efforts paid for in large part by big game hunting,” she said.

US Hunter Tess Thompson Talley Happy Killing Of Rare Giraffe

Big game hunting is legal in South Africa, where the industry and related tourism brings in US$2 billion annually, according to the BBC.

Giraffes were classified as “vulnerable” in 2016 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which manages the list of endangered species worldwide. The number of giraffes in Sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by nearly 40 per cent since 1985, according to the organisation.

Talley is not the first American who has come under fire for big game hunting. In 2015 a Minneapolis dentist prompted fury for killing Cecil, a famous Zimbabwean lion.

US President Donald Trump’s sons Donald Jnr and Eric both enjoy big-game hunting, according to their father. Pictures of them posing with animals they had killed in 2011, including a leopard, drew criticism after resurfacing in 2016.

In March, the US Fish and Wildlife Service allowed for some big game trophies to be imported from Africa on a case-by-case basis, reversing a ban initiated under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

– Reuters