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Amazing human chain rescues drowning family on Florida beach

Eryn Dion
NWF Daily News
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 20:39 UTC
human chain rescues drowning family florida beach
© Panama City News HeraldBeachgoers formed a human chain near the M.B. Miller County Pier on Saturday afternoon off Panama City Beach to rescue nine swimmers who were drowning.
It was supposed to just be a quick trip to the beach, but the Saturday afternoon diversion to the water almost ended in unspeakable tragedy for Roberta Ursrey and her family.

Ursrey and her husband, mother, nephews and sons were enjoying the sun and yellow-flag conditions near the M.B. Miller County Pier. Ursrey herself had just left the water, but when she turned around to look for her sons, she noticed they were much farther from shore than she remembered. Concerned, she started walking down the beach.

And then she heard their screams.

"They were screaming and crying that they were stuck," Ursrey recalled in an interview Monday. "People were saying, 'Don't go out there.' "

Unwilling to watch them drown, Ursrey and her family swam out to them, but the rip current was much stronger than they realized and despite her best efforts to escape, they were trapped as well. All in all, Ursrey said there were nine people stuck in about 15 feet of water, including her mother, who suffered a massive heart attack during the ordeal and very nearly died.
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Heart - Black

New footage of cop beating unarmed woman with baton causes police brutality case to be re-opened

Jack Burns
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 18:57 UTC
cop beats woman
Katie McCrary is, is a homeless woman doing whatever she can to survive. But while she may have a criminal history, she, like other law-breakers, still deserve to be treated humanely and with some sense of decency. But that didn't happen, according to critics, when a Dekalb County police officer struck her with his baton nearly too many times to count.

Police were called to the scene of a local convenience store at the corner of Glenwood and Line St. in Decatur last month. McCrary had been propositioning patrons for money. Others say she's frequently there and may have mental issues.

But when the unnamed DeKalb County officer arrived, McCrary allegedly pushed him and would not follow his commands. That's when bystanders say he began beating her with his baton.

"Like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, that's excessive," customer Calvin Smith said.

The incident happened on June 4, and a complaint of "excessive use of force" was filed as a result of the officer's actions. The department investigated, and came to the following conclusion which exonerated the officer.
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Roses

Asma Al-Assad: How Western Propaganda Turned "A Rose in the Desert" Into "A Cheerleader For Evil"

Sarah Abed
American Herald Tribune
Sun, 09 Jul 2017 17:45 UTC
Asma al-Assad
Asma al-Assad
In early March 2011, right before the carefully calculated and planned imposed war and invasion in Syria, Vogue Magazine published a surprisingly positive article titled: Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.
"Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She's a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her "the element of light in a country full of shadow zones." "She is the first lady of Syria".
The article gave readers an inside view of what life was like for the Assad's In Syria. It didn't exaggerate, or misrepresent information and had a seemingly unbiased tone.
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Cowboy Hat

Texas Supreme Court suspends judge over allegations of sexting while on the bench and using illegal drugs


Star-Telegram
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 17:36 UTC
judge hilary green
© kristv.com
The Texas Supreme Court has suspended a Houston judge amid allegations she sexted while on the bench and used illegal drugs.

Harris County Justice of the Peace Hilary Green was suspended Friday without pay at the request of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Records show Green, in response to the commission, acknowledged illegally obtaining prescription drugs, plus used marijuana. Green's response also indicated she engaged in sexually explicit and drug-related texts with a bailiff.

The Houston Chronicle reported that it's the first time any Texas judge has received a temporary suspension in at least a decade in a contested matter, the commission says.
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Attention

Yemen's cholera outbreak 'spiraling out of control' amid Saudi war


Sputnik
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 17:12 UTC
yemen cholera outbreak
The Red Cross has reported that the cholera outbreak in Yemen has reached a rampant pace of growth, with more than 300,000 cases suspected in the war torn nation of 25 million.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that the cholera epidemic, which is growing by 7,000 new cases every day in just a fraction of the country, "continues to spiral out of control."

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 262,000 suspected cases and 1,587 deaths on July 2 — but officials were only able to collect data from 21 of Yemen's 23 governorates. On June 24, the WHO reported the number of cases at 200,000, a 50-percent increase in cases over just 16 days. During the initial outbreak in April, the WHO predicted that the 300,000 mark wouldn't be reached until autumn.
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Heart

Renowned artist George Butler captures brutality of Mosul in poignant drawings


RT
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:50 UTC
george butler mosul painting
© georgebutler.org
Renowned reportage artist George Butler has traveled to Iraq's Mosul to depict how the war ruined not just the city but also people's lives. Butler told RT he cannot accept the routine way the civilian cost of fighting and airstrikes is being described.

Butler, who has previously traveled to Syria and Afghanistan to depict the world's bloodiest conflicts, was embedded with an Iraqi special forces and emergency response force for 10 days in March, as the government struggled to take the city back from Islamic State (IS, ISIL/ISIS), six months after the battle started.

"Mosul is a story that should be told. It was an easy decision to go," said Butler when asked if it took courage to travel to a warzone, speaking to RT via video link from the UK.
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Stormtrooper

US soldier arrested in terrorism probe after pledging allegiance to Islamic State


RFE/RL
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:52 UTC
US soldier American flag
A U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has been arrested on charges of providing material support to Islamic State extremists, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on July 10.

Ikaika Kang, 34, a soldier in the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, in Hawaii had been under investigation by the Army and FBI for more than a year and was taken into custody on July 8, the FBI said.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Honolulu, Kang has sworn allegiance to IS, the militant group that seized large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq for a self-proclaimed caliphate in 2014.

Comment: Kang was only following the same course set by the US. His mistake was in thinking a low level soldier could engage in the same deplorable behavior as high ranking politicians like Hillary Clinton.

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Arrow Up

Americans ignore CNN, visit Russia in record numbers

Paul Goncharoff
Russia Insider
Mon, 10 Jul 2017 18:33 UTC
russia_tourist
© Russia Insider
Bookings by the better known US-based specialized travel agencies for Americans heading to Russia have seen a dramatic turnaround with increases of 30% between 2015 and 2016, adding a further +12% so far in 2017.

Since 2016 to May 2017, some interesting developments have been ongoing in the now well-known relationship between Russia and China as the quantity of both tourists and businesspeople moving between the two countries have increased by 32% from China and 37% from Russia. True, the numbers are not spectacularly high yet the trend is apparent.

Due to sanctions and media perceptions, we initially saw a decreased demand in 2014 from US and EU businesspeople and tourists, then on the other hand, the sanctions and the cheap ruble have compensated with increased domestic travel by Russians throughout the regions of the country, which has made a positive impact on the hotel occupancy rates.
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Star of David

Majority of Israelis polled want greater separation of church and state


RT
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:37 UTC
rabbi
© Ammar Awad / Reuters
Some 55 percent of Jewish Israelis would like a review of the longstanding policy that sees Judaism and the state fused to a great extent, a new poll shows. The same percentage of respondents believe the current policy reflects an ultra-Orthodox view.

The authors of the survey, which was commissioned by the Israel Democracy Institute, asked groups of Israel's Jewish population with various religious backgrounds about their opinion on the status quo, a consensus on the role of religion in the life of the Jewish state reached between secular and religious parties that dates back to its early days.

The main pillars of the policy were outlined in a letter by one of Israel's founders, its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, from June 1947, and later enshrined in Israeli law. That includes limiting business and public activity on Shabbat, putting rabbinical courts solely in charge of any matters concerning marriage and divorce of Jewish Israelis and not allowing the option of a civil marriage for anyone. As for the non-Jewish population, including Christians and Muslims, the letter purported to guarantee a freedom of conscience giving them permission not to follow Shabbat and providing other exceptions.
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Heart - Black

Israeli nuke whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu sentenced again for talking to foreigners


Sputnik
Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:30 UTC
Mordechai Vanunu
Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who in 1986 exposed Israel's nuclear weapons program and spent 18 years in jail for his revelations, has been sentenced again, this time for violating terms of his parole.

Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's Negev Nuclear Research Center, revealed to the media in 1986 that the country was developing nuclear weapons — a revelation that the embattled Middle Eastern nation refuted and continues to deny to this day, in spite of irrefutable evidence and widespread global condemnation, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The whistleblower was branded a traitor and sentenced to 18 years in prison for the revelation.

Comment: See:

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