The owners and operators of a duck boat that sank in Missouri, killing 17 people, put passengers’ lives at risk by going out to water when severe thunderstorms were predicted, lawyers involved in a $100 million federal lawsuit argued Monday.
“For 20 years, we have known that duck boats are death traps. It was proven yet again in devastating fashion in Branson, Missouri,” attorney Robert Mongeluzzi said during a news conference Monday morning.
“It is clear that they knew severe weather was coming and they tried to beat the storm by going on water first rather than refunding the 40 bucks that each of these people paid putting their lives at risk,” he said, later adding. “This was not in any way a storm that came out of nowhere.”
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The duck boat that sank is lifted out of Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri, on July 23, 2018.Lora Ratliff / U.S. Coast Guard
The giant antenna rises from the desert floor like an apparition, a gleaming metal tower jutting 16 stories above an endless wind-whipped stretch of Patagonia.
The 450-ton device, with its hulking dish embracing the open skies, is the centerpiece of a $50 million satellite and space mission control station built by the Chinese military.
The isolated base is one of the most striking symbols of Beijing’s long push to transform Latin America and shape its future for generations to come — often in ways that directly undermine the United States’ political, economic and strategic power in the region.
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Our correspondent went to the deserts of Patagonia to examine how China secured its new base, a symbol of its growing clout in the region.
Tributes have been paid to three former stars of the wrestling world who died on the same day this weekend.
Brian Lawler, Nikolai Volkoff and Brickhouse Brown all passed away on Sunday aged 46, 70 and 57 respectively.
The WWE said it was ” saddened ” to hear Lawler and Volkoff had died, while the National Wrestling Alliance sent its ” deepest condolences and sympathies “.
US and Olympic wrestler Kurt Angle said it had been “a very sad day in the history of sports entertainment”.
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Image caption Brian Lawler, Nikolai Volkoff and Brickhouse Brown all passed away on Sunday
Tributes have been paid to three former stars of the wrestling world who died on the same day this weekend.
Spinning objects are hypnotic and fascinating, as last year’s fidget-spinner craze overwhelmingly demonstrated. But even the fastest fidget spinner trails the new reigning champion of fast-whirling objects: a tiny dumbbell that can rotate 60 billion times per minute.
It’s enough to make your head spin.
Spin doctors — er, researchers — recently created the nanoscale rotor and levitated it in a vacuum, blasting it with lasers to set it spinning. Their research, described in a new study, could help reveal how different substances respond under extreme conditions and how friction behaves in a vacuum, Tongcang Li, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, as well as electrical and computer engineering, at Purdue University, said in a statement.
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Researchers at Purdue University have levitated a nanoparticle in vacuum and driven it to rotate at high speed, bringing them one step closer to figuring out the properties of vacuum and quantum mechanics.Vincent Walter / Purdue University
At least seven people were still missing in Shasta County, California, as the monstrous Carr Fire continued to grow Sunday, authorities said.
Sixteen people had been reported missing, but nine of those were found safe, according to Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, who spoke at a Sunday news conference.
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Redding Police Sgt. Todd Cogle said, “We’re finding that there are a lot of communication issues” making it hard to locate residents.
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“We spoke with several people who left their cell phones at their residences and in this day and age people don’t remember people’s phone numbers,” Cogle said.
Rachael Pomerleau, 40, had taken opioids before, having had procedures like wisdom teeth removal and gallbladder surgery.
But during the tumultuous two years that her children, now ages 7 and 8, were born, opioids took over her life, she told HuffPost. She was put on bed rest as a result of complications with the pregnancy of her daughter. A few months after her daughter’s birth, she became pregnant with her son. This time, her back and abdominal pain grew so severe that doctors prescribed Vicodin followed by Percocet during her pregnancy ― which wasn’t an unusual prescription for pregnant women at the time, prior to the onset of the opioid epidemic.
“It hurt so bad,” she said. “There were times when I could hardly walk without being in pain.”
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Erin Schumaker/HuffPost
Rachael Pomerleau, 40, was prescribed opioids in a medical setting. Her years of addiction have included homelessness, loss of custody of her children and struggles to get the resources she needs.
A new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open underscores an often overlooked factor in gun-policy debates: When it comes to lethality, not all guns are created equal.
Analyzing data on hundreds of shootings in Boston from 2010 to 2014, Anthony Braga of Northeastern University and Philip J. Cook of Duke University found that on a bullet-per-bullet basis, shootings committed with a large-caliber firearm are much more likely to result in a fatality than those with a smaller-caliber gun. Caliber is a measure of the diameter of the bullets fired by a particular gun.
The study analyzed data on 221 gun homicides and 1,012 nonfatal shootings that happened in Boston between 2010 and 2014. On first glance, the numbers provided a confirmation of the depressing demographics of shooting cases: “Most gunshot victims and survivors were young minority men with prior court arraignments,” Braga and Cook found. “Most attacks occurred in circumstances where gangs or drugs played an important role.” Most occurred outdoors in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
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Handguns for sale at a store in Greeley, Pa., on April 26. (Bryan Anselm/Redux for The Washington Post)
Two years, or roughly a million news cycles ago, give or take. The FBI’s original Trump-Russia investigation got underway in the summer before the 2016 campaign, though the public wasn’t really aware of it then. (In contrast to the extremely public FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the bureau followed protocol and never publicly acknowledged that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was under investigation for its ties to a hostile foreign government.)
The little reporting on the probe at the time underplayed the gravity of the investigation. Not long before the election, The New York Times said in a piece titled “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia,” that investigators had not “found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government.”
It wasn’t until long after Trump’s election that then-FBI Director James Comey in March 2017 publicly confirmed the bureau’s investigation of connections between Trump associates and the Russian government. The Times later admitted that its pre-election story “gave an air of finality to an investigation that was just beginning” and buried the key fact of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, center, is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It’s been alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to tip the scales toward a Donald Trump victory.
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Our correspondent went to the deserts of Patagonia to examine how China secured its new base, a symbol of its growing clout in the region.
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