Current Events #6

1. Current Events #6

2. Gasping for Air NASA’s next mission to Mars aims to answer one question: What happened to the air that once made the surface habitable? That is the latest piece in the scientific exploration of whether Mars could have been, perhaps four billion years ago, a place friendly for life. The answer may come from a space probe known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or Maven for short, which is ready for the launching pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and poised to lift off Monday at 1:28 p.m. After a 10-month journey, the spacecraft is to enter orbit around Mars and spend at least a year observing Mars’s atmosphere. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/science/space/nasa-probe-may-help-solve-riddle-of-marss-missing-air.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

3. Are the 7 Dwarves Okay? OURAY, Colo. (AP) — Two workers were killed and 20 others were injured Sunday in a mining accident near the southwestern Colorado town of Ouray. The Ouray County sheriff’s office was called to the Revenue-Virginius mine at about 7:20 a.m., county spokeswoman Marti Whitmore said. The miners were underground and were confirmed dead Sunday afternoon. “Anything that has been reported is speculative,” Whitmore said. “We don’t know what the cause is.” A spokeswoman for Ouray County said 20 people were taken to area hospitals and all but two have been treated and released. A project manager reportedly said a ‘powder-smoke incident’ was to blame. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/colo-mining-accident-leaves-2-killed-20-hurt-article-1.1520225

4. The news for moose is not good across the country's northern tier and in some parts of Canada. A recent and rapid decline of moose populations in many states may be linked to climate change, and to the parasites that benefit from it. Though most ticks have already abandoned the moose body, Rockwell's concern about ticks is well-placed. Biologists and hunters around the nation say that declines in moose populations have often been accompanied by a surge of infestations of the winter tick. A single moose can carry more than 100,000 of the bloodsuckers. Sometimes, Rines says, anemic, infested animals are transformed into "ghost moose." Ghost Moose http://www.npr.org/2013/11/05/241607259/thanks-to-parasites-moose-are-looking-more-like-ghosts

5. (CNN) -- A Detroit-area man who claimed he accidentally shot and killed a 19-year-old woman he thought was breaking into his home was charged Friday with second-degree murder, after days of pressure from her relatives seeking an arrest. Theodore Paul Wafer, 54, also was charged with manslaughter and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the November 2 shooting of Renisha McBride, who authorities say was intoxicated and possibly disoriented following a car crash before Wafer shot her on his Dearborn Heights porch. McBride was unarmed and there was no evidence of a break-in, so Wafer -- who authorities say shot McBride from behind a closed, locked screen door -- cannot lawfully claim he needed to shoot her to stop an imminent threat, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told reporters Friday. Screen Door Shooting http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/15/justice/michigan-woman-shot-charges/

6. AN FRANCISCO - When the Giants won the World Series in 2010 for the first time since the team moved to San Francisco, there was a palpable feeling of happiness in the air -- strangers smiled at each other, happy tears were shed, and thousands flooded the streets to celebrate. But few have seen anything like Friday's "Batkid" phenomenon, which melted even the hardest of hearts and had people across the country weeping onto their computer keyboards at work. Dozens of people tweeted about being overwhelmed by emotion while reading about Miles Scott, the 5-year-old leukemia patient who dreamed of being Batman. The Make-a-Wish foundation granted his wish by working with volunteers and local leaders to turn San Francisco into Gotham City for a day. Batkid Saves the Day http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_24553808/batkid-san-francisco-police-chief-reflects-wild-success

7. No Smokes for You New York (CNN) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation Tuesday raising the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21. The law takes effect in six months. In addition to the "Tobacco 21" bill, which also covers electronic cigarettes, Bloomberg signed a second bill, dubbed Sensible Tobacco Enforcement, which prohibits discounts on tobacco products and increases enforcement on vendors who attempt to evade taxes. New York State's Department of Health estimates that cigarette excise tax evasion deprived the state of $500 million in 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/19/us/new-york-city-tobacco-age-law/index.html?c=us&page=0

8. I Have an Evil Twin Too (CNN) -- It's a mind-boggling surprise in whodunit mysteries and soap operas, but a soldier in Colorado is using the dramatic ploy for real in a criminal courtroom: his "evil twin" may be responsible for the sex crimes against girls that he's now accused of. The soldier's defense rests partly on the fact he and his identical twin brother have virtually the same DNA, an attempt to undercut authorities' allegations that the DNA from the crime scenes belongs to the soldier. The defendant, Aaron Gregory Lucas, 32, is also a suspect in sex crimes in two other states, authorities say. In addition to raising his twin brother as a suspect, Lucas also claims that a third man may be the culprit in some of the crimes, court papers say. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/justice/colorado-soldier-evil-twin-defense/index.html?c=&page=1

9. My Great, Great, Great Clamfather Ming is a clam. An ancient clam. You know when Columbus first arrived in America? That's about the time when Ming was born. For more than half a decade scientists believed that Ming the clam was 405 years old when it died, but new testing has revealed that it was in fact a lot older. In a paper published in the journal Palaeo 3, researchers from Bangor University in North Wales say Ming was 507 years old when it was discovered in 2006. Clam, that's old. Ming is an Articaislandica bivalve mollusk, also called an ocean quahog. In fall 2006, a team of scientists on a research cruise dredged it up from the ocean floor off the coast of Iceland. Like the other mollusks caught on that trip, Ming was flash-frozen on the ship and brought to a lab for further study. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ming-507-year-old-clam-20131118,0,2156754.story

10. Death From Above v.2382 Two senior members of a feared Afghan insurgent group were killed early on Thursday in the first strike by a US drone outside Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. A Pakistani intelligence official claimed five people were killed by the early morning strike on a religious seminary in Hangu, a district bordering the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where nearly all US drone strikes have taken place in the past. Residents and police claimed three or four missiles were fired at a section of the mud-built madrasa just before 5am. The seminary's students, many of whom were sleeping in a nearby room, escaped unhurt. The intelligence official, who asked not to be named, said all five killed were members of the Haqqani network, a militarily highly capable Taliban faction, including Mullah Ahmed Jan, a senior fundraiser known as the "minister of finance" and a close aide to the group's leader, SirajuddinHaqqani. Jan's body was taken away for burial in North Waziristan shortly after the strike, according to witnesses. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/21/senior-taliban-haqqani-killed-us-drone-strike-pakistan

11. Peace at Last? (CNN) -- The United States and Afghanistan have reached a deal on the final language of a bilateral security agreement, guiding the role of American troops in that south Asian nation for years to come, America's top diplomat said Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the accord was reached during conversations Wednesday between himself and Afghan President HamidKarzai. Afghan leaders will hold a meeting -- known as a loyajirga, or grand assembly -- starting on Thursday to decide whether to accept or reject the deal, which lays out a limited support role for American forces beyond next year. If approved, the agreement would go into effect January 1, 2015, and last "until the end of 2024 and beyond, unless terminated" by mutual agreement and with two years notice by either party, according to a copy of the deal posted online Wednesday by the Afghan government that a U.S. official confirms is authentic. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/world/asia/us-afghanistan-security-agreement/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

12. The Oregon Employment Department wasted $6.9 million on a software project that never worked and now must spend another $1.2 million to bail out its old system. The bleeding doesn’t stop there. The boondoggle may force the agency to repay $1 million or more in federal funding because the project is being canceled, according to a 2012 report obtained by The Oregonian. An ongoing investigation by the newspaper has revealed the state agency wasted millions of dollars on faulty tech upgrades and stalled software projects. The document management project the agency is trashing is just one example. Several other projects are shelved for now without any price tag on how to fix them -- if they can be saved at all. As it stands, the state Department of Administrative Services is overseeing any further work and a California contractor is charting the tech division's path forward. I Could Use $7 million http://www.oregonlive.com/money/index.ssf/2013/11/oregon_employment_department_wasted_nearly_7_million_on_failed_software_project_could_spend_millions_more_to_clean_it_up.html#incart_river_default

13. Bobble or Bubble Head More than 40% of Toronto voters still approve of the job mayor Rob Ford has done, even after he admitted smoking crack cocaine and the city council stripped him of much of his authority. A Forum Research survey of 1,049 Toronto voters released on Friday showed 42% of respondents approve of the job Ford has been doing as mayor of Canada's largest city. That's down from 44% in a similar poll two weeks ago, but up from 39% in late October, just before Ford admitted he smoked crack cocaine while in office. Indeed, support for Ford, who has seen much of his authority stripped by city council over the past week, is still comfortably in the 37-49% range that he has polled in over the past two years, Forum said. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/rob-ford-canada

14. A Very Bad Boy Mexican authorities set free a former teen cartel hit man on Tuesday and sent him back to the United States. The release of Edgar Jimenez Lugo, a U.S. citizen known as "El Ponchis" or "The Cloak," comes less than three years after a Mexican court found him guilty of torturing and beheading at least four people and kidnapping three others as an operative for the South Pacific Cartel. The teenager's age -- 14 at the time -- and his on-camera description of the slayings, brought international attention to the case. Analysts said the dramatic example showed how Mexican drug gangs were increasingly recruiting youths. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/26/world/americas/mexico-teen-hit-man-freed/index.html

15. Wish They had Taken the Bus Four people have been killed and more than 60 injured in a passenger train crash in the Bronx area of New York. Eleven of the injured are believed to be in a critical condition in hospital. The Metro-North train's locomotive and carriages derailed as the train went into a bend in the railway line near Spuyten Duyvil station. At least one eyewitness said the train - the 05:54 from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station - was travelling much faster than normal at the time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25176496

16. Breaking Bad, North Korean Style Move over, Walter White. Five men have been extradited to the U.S. from Thailand for their alleged participation in a drug-trafficking ring involving the import of crystal meth produced in North Korea, a militarized nation that is one of the most reclusive in the world. The men were arrested in September after they allegedly promised North Korean–made methamphetamines to undercover agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to be exported to the United States. Two of the men, who officials say were members of a Hong Kong–based criminal organization, allegedly sold more than 66 pounds of meth produced in North Korea in 2012. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/21/5-charged-with-smugglingmethfromnorthkorea.html