MOLALLA, Ore. (AP) ? Police in the Oregon town of Molalla say a dispatcher received a cellphone call and overheard a drug deal taking place.
A phone in the woman's pocket inadvertently dialed 911 early Tuesday and dispatchers heard a conversation with a man about drugs.
KGW reports (http://bit.ly/13tEKpX ) police tracked the GPS signal to a car in an alley about a block away. An officer who arrived at the scene could be heard over the phone by dispatchers.
The officer found methamphetamine and arrested a 25-year-old man on multiple drug charges. The 25-year-old woman was cited for possessing marijuana ? and hung up her phone.
Former NBA bad boy Dennis Rodman declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-un his 'friend for life' after watching the Harlem Globetrotters in the isolated country today.
By Whitney Eulich,?Staff writer / February 28, 2013
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series.
Jason Mojica, VICE Media/AP
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Former Chicago Bulls basketball star and 1990s bad boy Dennis Rodman may not have run into K-Pop star Psy during his ?basketball diplomacy? jaunt to North Korea this week, but he reportedly met secretive leader Kim Jong-un.
Skip to next paragraph Whitney Eulich
Latin America Editor
Whitney Eulich is the Monitor's Latin America editor, overseeing regional coverage for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She also curates the Latin America Monitor Blog.
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Dennis Rodman, ex-NBA star, an unexpected US ambassador for better relations?
?You have a friend for life,? The Associated Press reports Mr. Rodman telling Mr. Kim today. The two men were watching the Harlem Globetrotters and North Korean basketball players face off on the court in front of a crowd of thousands, and later dined on sushi together, according to the news agency.
Rodman traveled to the isolated country along with three members of the Globetrotters and producers from VICE media to film an HBO series. The scene, described by VICE employees at the game, sounds like quite a sight:
Dressed in a blue Mao suit, Kim laughed and slapped his hands on the table before him during the game as he sat nearly knee to knee with Rodman. Rodman, the man who once turned up in a wedding dress to promote his autobiography, wore a dark suit and dark sunglasses, but still had on his nose rings and other piercings.
The high-profile visit comes at a precarious time for North Korea, which recently launched its third nuclear test, raising already sky-high tensions with neighboring South Korea and garnering condemnation from the international community.
?Pyongyang has engaged in high-profile saber-rattling in recent weeks, including a warning this past weekend of "miserable destruction" if the United States and South Korea go ahead with a planned joint naval exercise next month,? The Christian Science Monitor notes.
?The North is trying to persuade the world ? and in particular the United States ? that it is a full-fledged nuclear power that can threaten others as much as it is threatened by them,? The Monitor reported in a separate story after the nuclear test.
That Pyongyang chose the day of President Obama's State of the Union address on which to conduct its test indicates how much the test was meant as a message for the US, regional analysts say.
The test was also directed at an internal audience. Leader Kim Jong-un, in power for just a year, is still establishing his credentials, observers say, and a successful test adds to his prestige and legitimacy, thus strengthening internal security.
The true aims of North Korea, however, remain officially unstated, and therefore open to speculation.
But Kim reportedly told Rodman that he hoped the former NBA player?s visit could help ?break the ice? between the US and North Korea, VICE founder Shane Smith relayed to the AP.
?They bonded during the game,? Mr. Smith told the AP.
Rodman and the film crew reportedly returned the invitation, according to the Los Angeles Times, asking Kim to visit the US.
If Kim visits, and relations between the US and North Korea improve, will Rodman win the Nobel Peace Prize? Now that would be crazy.
For the past year, Oregon has been a 'wolf-safe' zone, with ranchers turning to nonlethal ways to protect livestock.?While the number of wolves has gone up, livestock kills haven't.
By Jeff Barnard,?Associated Press / March 2, 2013
In this 2012 photo, the Lamar Canyon wolf pack moves on a hillside in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. For the past year, Oregon has been a "wolf-safe" zone, with ranchers turning to more modern, nonlethal ways to protect livestock.
Wolves of the Rockies/AP
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As long as wolves have been making their comeback, biologists and ranchers have had a decidedly Old West option for dealing with those that develop a taste for beef: Shoot to kill. But for the past year, Oregon has been a "wolf-safe" zone, with ranchers turning to more modern, nonlethal ways to protect livestock.
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While the number of wolves roaming the state has gone up, livestock kills haven't ? and now conservation groups are hoping Oregon can serve as a model for other Western states working to return the predator to the wild.
"Once the easy option of killing wolves is taken off the table, we've seen reluctant but responsible ranchers stepping up," said Rob Klavins of the advocacy group Oregon Wild. "Conflict is going down. And wolf recovery has got back on track."
The no-kill ban has been in place since September 2011. That's when the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it planned to kill two members of the Imnaha wolf pack in northeastern Wallowa County for taking livestock. Conservation groups sued, arguing that rules allowing wolves to be killed to reduce livestock attacks did not comply with the state Endangered Species Act. The Oregon Court of Appeals stepped in, prohibiting wolf kills while the two sides work to settle, although ranchers who catch wolves in the act of killing livestock may still shoot them.
At the end of 2012, wolf numbers in the state had risen to 46 from 29 in 2011, according to state fish and wildlife officials. Meantime, four cows and eight sheep were killed last year by two separate packs, while 13 cows were killed by one pack in 2011.
Wallowa County cattle rancher Karl Patton started giving nonlethal methods a try in 2010, after he fired off his pistol to chase off a pack of wolves in a pasture filled with cows and newborn calves. State wildlife officials provided him with an alarm that erupts with bright lights and the sound of gunshots when a wolf bearing a radio-tracking collar treads near. He also staked out fladry fencing at calving time. The long strings of red plastic flags flutter in the wind to scare away wolves. The flags fly from an electrically charged wire that gives off a jolt to predators that dare touch it.
The rancher put 7,000 miles on his ATV spending more time with his herd, and cleaned up old carcasses that put the scent of meat on the wind. And state wildlife officials text him nightly, advising whether a wolf with a satellite GPS tracking collar is nearby.
"None of this stuff is a sure cure," said Patton, who worries the fladry will lose its effectiveness once wolves become accustomed to it. Such measures also can't be used in open range.
Eight police officers in South Africa are facing murder charges following the death of a man who died after being tied to the back of a police van. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News
Eight South African police officers have been charged with murder amid outrage over the death of a taxi driver who was dragged along the ground while tied to a police van.
The incident in the Johannesburg area of Daveyton on Tuesday was caught on video by a bystander and the film has since gone viral on YouTube.
Mido Macia, 27, originally from Mozambique, did not die while he was dragged down the street, but was later found dead in his police cell.
Moses Dlamini, of the police investigation unit, said the officers were charged with murder late Friday, The Associated Press reported.
In a statement, South Africa?s President Jacob Zuma said that the ?visuals of the incident are horrific, disturbing and unacceptable.?
?No human being should be treated in that manner,? he added.
South Africa's police chief Gen. Riah Phiyega said she shared "the extreme shock and outrage" over the video evidence of abuse of Macia by police officers and said his rights were "violated in the most extreme form,? the AP reported.
Earlier Phiyega told a news conference Friday that the eight officers involved had been suspended and the station commander was going to be removed from duty, Reuters reported.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related:
Taxi driver dies after being dragged by South African police van
South Africa uses apartheid-era law to accuse 270 miners of murder
'Murder on a massive scale': Angry fallout from mine shootings
?
This story was originally published on Fri Mar 1, 2013 5:49 AM EST
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? In later versions of a Feb. 27 story about Arkansas abortion legislation, The Associated Press misidentified the year of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision. It was 1973, not 1976.
A corrected version of the story is below:
Ark. House overrides veto of abortion restrictions
Arkansas House overrides veto of bill banning most abortions after 19th week of pregnancy
By ANDREW DeMILLO
Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? The Arkansas House voted 53-28 Wednesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of a bill that would outlaw most abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy, hours after a state Senate committee approved a package of even tighter abortion restrictions.
The Republican-controlled state Senate, which overwhelmingly backed the 20-week near-ban on abortions before Beebe, a Democrat, vetoed it, was expected to discuss whether to vote to override the veto Thursday. Like the GOP-led House, only a simple majority in the Senate is needed to override a veto.
The House-sponsored measure is based on the disputed argument that a fetus can feel pain by the 20th week of pregnancy, and thus deserves protection from abortion. Beebe vetoed the bill Tuesday, saying it contradicts the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion until a fetus can viably survive outside of the womb, which is typically at 22 to 24 weeks.
"This is not just any regular bill. It's one that has an eternal impact on each of us and to those children," Republican Rep. Andy Mayberry told House members as he urged them to override.
Two of the House's 48 Democrats joined with all 51 GOP members to support overriding Beebe's veto. Eighteen Democrats and the chamber's only Green Party member did not vote on the override, which has the same effect as voting against it. Republicans hold 21 of the 35 seats in the Senate, which approved the bill on a 25-7 vote last week.
Before the House vote, the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee voted 5-2 to advance a bill that would ban most abortions starting in the 12th week of pregnancy, sending it to the full Senate. The Senate passed an earlier version of the bill that would have outlawed abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, but amended it to push back the restriction and to add more exemptions.
Beebe declined to say Wednesday whether he also would veto the Senate's proposed 12-week ban, but he said he thinks it's on even shakier legal ground than the House's 20-week version.
"I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do on a bill that's even more problematic than the one I already vetoed, but I won't tell you officially until that time," Beebe said Tuesday.
Seven states have enacted similar 20-week restrictions based on the fetal pain argument, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks laws affecting women's health. A similar law in Arizona has been blocked while a federal appeals court reviews a lawsuit challenging it.
The Arkansas bill is based on research Mayberry and other abortion opponents cite that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, however, says it knows of no legitimate scientific information supporting the idea that a fetus experiences pain.
John DiPippa, dean emeritus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's law school, said he agrees with Beebe that the ban is unconstitutional and likely will be decided by the courts. He said he thinks the fetal pain argument will lose in the lower courts but that it's unclear how it might fare if it were to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
"The core holding of Roe is that a state cannot place an obstacle in the way of a woman who wants to abort before viability," DiPippa said. "If you apply that standard, then these bills that draw the line at 20 weeks ? which by all medical estimates is prior to viability ? would clearly set up a substantial obstacle to a woman's ability to before that age."
GOP Sen. Jason Rapert said he hopes Beebe lets it stand but said he was confident the 12-week ban would have enough support to override a veto.
"The governor has his own conscience," Rapert, R-Conway, told reporters. "I think probably the best route would be that he just simply not sign the bill and let it become law, if that's what he decides to do. If he doesn't, then we'll override the veto and it'll become law in the state of Arkansas."
___
Associated Press writer Michael Stratford contributed to this report.
___
Andrew DeMillo can be reached at www.twitter.com/ademillo
My pal Erik Olsen at The New York Times has just described an extraordinary new way to look at people. You point a camera at someone, record the image and then, using an "amplifier," you can discover things you've never seen before.
Originally designed to look (but not touch) brand new babies, to monitor their breathing, Professor William Freeman's team at MIT realized their "Eulerian Video Magnification" technique can measure small color changes and very slight movements on the surface of a body to measure what's going on inside. You can point this machine at someone trapped in building collapse and figure out if he's still breathing. You can watch a Batman movie and see actor Christian Bale's heart beating!
"Once we amplify these small motions, there's a whole new world you can look at," says Professor Freeman.
That's putting it mildly.
You can find Eric's New York Times article here. Professor Freeman and his team describe their findings here.
Wild pollinators increase crop fruit set regardless of honey beesPublic release date: 1-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lucas A. Garibaldi lgaribaldi@unrn.edu.ar 54-294-442-3731 Pensoft Publishers
A large-scales study shows that wild insects effectively pollinate crops and play vital role in agricultural production
Changes made by humans to the natural landscapes can often compromise ecosystems, which paradoxically are vital for human survival. Pollination of crops by wild insects is one such vulnerable ecosystem service, as wild insects are declining in many agricultural landscapes. The study, recently published in Science, focused on understanding whether the ongoing loss of wild insects impacts crop harvest. For this purpose, the researchers compared fields with abundant and diverse wild insects to those with degraded assemblages of wild insects across 600 fields at 41 crop systems on all continents with farmland.
The study found that fruit set, the proportion of flowers setting seeds or fruits, was considerably lower in sites with less wild insects visiting the crop flowers. Therefore, losses of wild insects from agricultural landscapes will likely impact both our natural heritage and agricultural harvest.
As hives of the honey bee are frequently added for improved pollination, the researchers asked whether this application can compensate for limited abundance and diversity of wild insects and fully maximize crop harvest. They found that variation in honey bee abundance improved fruit set in only 14% of the crop systems they served. Furthermore, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively because an increase in their visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation. Importantly, high abundance of managed honey bees supplemented, rather than substituted for, pollination by wild insects.
These results hold even for crops stocked routinely with high densities of honey bees for pollination, such as almond, blueberry, mango or watermelon. Although honey bees are generally viewed as a substitute for wild pollinators, this study demonstrates that they neither maximize pollination, nor fully replace the contributions of diverse, wild-insect assemblages to fruit set for a broad range of crops and agricultural practices on all continents with farmland.
The leading author, Lucas A. Garibaldi, Universidad Nacional de Ro Negro - CONICET, Argentina comments: "Our study shows that losses of wild insects from agricultural landscapes impact not only our natural heritage but also our agricultural harvests. We found that wild insects consistently enhanced the number of flowers setting fruits or seeds for a broad range of crops and agricultural practices on all continents with farmland. Long term, productive agricultural systems should include habitat for both honey bees and diverse wild insects. Our study prompts for the implementation of more sustainable agricultural practices."
Alexandra-Maria Klein, Leuphana University of Lneburg, Germany adds: "Ecosystem services can depend on biodiversity provided by wild organisms. Intensified agriculture separates crop production and biodiversity. Our study shows that this separation can have negative consequences for pollination services not buffered by honeybee management. We urgently need more research that informs but also involves the global and wider society to explore novel management designs for agricultural landscapes."
###
This study was funded and supported by a large number of organisations worldwide among which the EU FP projects STEP, SCALES and ALARM.
Contacts:
Lucas A. Garibaldi Universidad Nacional de Ro Negro, Argentina
Alexandra-Maria Klein
Leuphana University of Lneburg, Germany
phone: 49-04131-677-2960
email: aklein@leuphana.de
Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
Julius Maximilian University of Wrzburg
Department of animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Germany
phone: 49-0931-31-86947
email: ingolf.steffan@uni-wuerzburg.de
Original source:
Garibaldi L.A., Steffan-Dewenter I, Winfree R, Aizen M.A., Bommarco R., Cunningham S.A., Kremen C., Carvalheiro L.G., Harder L.D., Afik O., Bartomeus I., Benjamin F., Boreux V., Cariveau D., Chacoff N.P., Dudenhffer J.H., Freitas B.M., Ghazoul J., Greenleaf S.,Hiplito J., Holzschuh A., Howlett B., Isaacs R., Javorek S.K., Kennedy C.M., Krewenka K., Krishnan S., Mandelik Y., Mayfield M.M., Motzke I., Munyuli T., Nault B.A., Otieno M., Petersen J., Pisanty G., Potts S.G., Rader R., Ricketts T.H., Rundlf M., Seymour C.L., Schepp C., Szentgyrgyi H., Taki H., Tscharntke T., Vergara C.H., Viana B.F., Wanger T.C., Westphal C., Williams N., Klein A.M. Wild pollinators enhance fruit set of crops regardless of honey-bee abundance. Science
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Wild pollinators increase crop fruit set regardless of honey beesPublic release date: 1-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Lucas A. Garibaldi lgaribaldi@unrn.edu.ar 54-294-442-3731 Pensoft Publishers
A large-scales study shows that wild insects effectively pollinate crops and play vital role in agricultural production
Changes made by humans to the natural landscapes can often compromise ecosystems, which paradoxically are vital for human survival. Pollination of crops by wild insects is one such vulnerable ecosystem service, as wild insects are declining in many agricultural landscapes. The study, recently published in Science, focused on understanding whether the ongoing loss of wild insects impacts crop harvest. For this purpose, the researchers compared fields with abundant and diverse wild insects to those with degraded assemblages of wild insects across 600 fields at 41 crop systems on all continents with farmland.
The study found that fruit set, the proportion of flowers setting seeds or fruits, was considerably lower in sites with less wild insects visiting the crop flowers. Therefore, losses of wild insects from agricultural landscapes will likely impact both our natural heritage and agricultural harvest.
As hives of the honey bee are frequently added for improved pollination, the researchers asked whether this application can compensate for limited abundance and diversity of wild insects and fully maximize crop harvest. They found that variation in honey bee abundance improved fruit set in only 14% of the crop systems they served. Furthermore, wild insects pollinated crops more effectively because an increase in their visitation enhanced fruit set by twice as much as an equivalent increase in honey bee visitation. Importantly, high abundance of managed honey bees supplemented, rather than substituted for, pollination by wild insects.
These results hold even for crops stocked routinely with high densities of honey bees for pollination, such as almond, blueberry, mango or watermelon. Although honey bees are generally viewed as a substitute for wild pollinators, this study demonstrates that they neither maximize pollination, nor fully replace the contributions of diverse, wild-insect assemblages to fruit set for a broad range of crops and agricultural practices on all continents with farmland.
The leading author, Lucas A. Garibaldi, Universidad Nacional de Ro Negro - CONICET, Argentina comments: "Our study shows that losses of wild insects from agricultural landscapes impact not only our natural heritage but also our agricultural harvests. We found that wild insects consistently enhanced the number of flowers setting fruits or seeds for a broad range of crops and agricultural practices on all continents with farmland. Long term, productive agricultural systems should include habitat for both honey bees and diverse wild insects. Our study prompts for the implementation of more sustainable agricultural practices."
Alexandra-Maria Klein, Leuphana University of Lneburg, Germany adds: "Ecosystem services can depend on biodiversity provided by wild organisms. Intensified agriculture separates crop production and biodiversity. Our study shows that this separation can have negative consequences for pollination services not buffered by honeybee management. We urgently need more research that informs but also involves the global and wider society to explore novel management designs for agricultural landscapes."
###
This study was funded and supported by a large number of organisations worldwide among which the EU FP projects STEP, SCALES and ALARM.
Contacts:
Lucas A. Garibaldi Universidad Nacional de Ro Negro, Argentina
Alexandra-Maria Klein
Leuphana University of Lneburg, Germany
phone: 49-04131-677-2960
email: aklein@leuphana.de
Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter
Julius Maximilian University of Wrzburg
Department of animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Germany
phone: 49-0931-31-86947
email: ingolf.steffan@uni-wuerzburg.de
Original source:
Garibaldi L.A., Steffan-Dewenter I, Winfree R, Aizen M.A., Bommarco R., Cunningham S.A., Kremen C., Carvalheiro L.G., Harder L.D., Afik O., Bartomeus I., Benjamin F., Boreux V., Cariveau D., Chacoff N.P., Dudenhffer J.H., Freitas B.M., Ghazoul J., Greenleaf S.,Hiplito J., Holzschuh A., Howlett B., Isaacs R., Javorek S.K., Kennedy C.M., Krewenka K., Krishnan S., Mandelik Y., Mayfield M.M., Motzke I., Munyuli T., Nault B.A., Otieno M., Petersen J., Pisanty G., Potts S.G., Rader R., Ricketts T.H., Rundlf M., Seymour C.L., Schepp C., Szentgyrgyi H., Taki H., Tscharntke T., Vergara C.H., Viana B.F., Wanger T.C., Westphal C., Williams N., Klein A.M. Wild pollinators enhance fruit set of crops regardless of honey-bee abundance. Science
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 1-Mar-2013
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