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Finsbury Park Attack Reinforces Terrorist Ideology
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Dramatic Increase In Number Of People Being Hospitalized Due To Opioids
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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Why Is China Snatching Up Australian Farmland?
At the wine tasting room of Taylors Wines in Sydney, Australia, bottles are uncorked, poured, swished, sniffed and sipped. There's a lot for employees to toast this year. "The Australian wine sector is growing at a fast rate," says Mitchell Taylor, the winery's managing director. "And what is exciting is the top level, about 20 to 30 dollars a bottle and above, that segment is growing at 53 percent." That's thanks, in part, to China. Five years ago, the biggest importers of Australian wines were the U.K. and the U.S. Now that title is held solely by China, and Australia's exports of wine there are growing at 40 percent per year. In the past year alone, Chinese investment in Australia's overall agricultural sector has skyrocketed threefold, from $300 million to $1 billion — an unprecedented investment boom. "We're very excited about this agricultural boom that is starting to happen now, not only in the wine sector, but in so many agricultural industries," says Taylor. "And I really
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Sea Shantyman Brings New England's Seafaring History To Life Through Songs
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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Celebrating Zeeland Hall ~ Results Fargo and Global Health ~ Trahant Reports ~ Oil Thefts
Zeeland Hall’s historic designation will be celebrated on Sunday. Here to share the story of the historic building are NDSU professor of history Tom Isern, and UND football coach Bubba Schweigert. Coach Schwigert’s grandfather was foreman for the building’s construction, his dad was a well known fan in the stands, and Bubba remembers attending many events in the hall. ~~~ There’s an effort to improve global funding for maternal and child health, and local chapters are playing a role. Here to explain are Bethany Wanzek and Natalie Eberts with RESULTS-Fargo . ~~~ UND professor Mark Trahant writes commentaries for Native Voice One . In today’s “ Trahant Reports ” essay, Mark reflects on the recent court decision regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline. Visit Mark’s blog at Trahant Reports.com . ~~~ A story on oil field theft from Inside Energy.
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Trahant Reports: DAPL Court Decision
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Mexico's Government Is Accused Of Targeting Journalists And Activists With Spyware
Jorge Santiago Aguirre is a lawyer at the Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez , a major human rights group in Mexico City, so he was curious when he got this text message in April 2016: "Mr. Jorge this is Juan Magarino," it read in Spanish. "Please help with my brother Heriberto a teacher who has been kidnapped by police it's a crime." Then, there was a hyperlink. He says the text didn't feel like random spamming. "It was related to information that was personal to us," he says. Aguirre is one of the lawyers representing the parents of 43 students who had been kidnapped by police in 2014. Eager to help, Aguirre clicked on the link. But nothing happened — at least, not right away. Days later, audio was leaked by alleged drug traffickers of a call between Aguirre and one of his clients, the father of a student who had disappeared. The call had been heavily edited and painted them as criminals . Aguirre had been hacked. "Like any good attack, this one begins with
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Diageo Buys George Clooney's Tequila Company For Up To $1 Billion
Spirits company Diageo is buying Casamigos, the tequila company co-founded by George Clooney, in a deal that values the company at up to $1 billion. The actor founded the company in 2013 with longtime friend Rande Gerber. Diageo will make an upfront payment of $700 million for Casamigos, with another $300 million to follow if it hits sales targets. Casamigos "has delivered impressive growth," Diageo says in a news release, "reaching 120,000 cases in 2016, primarily in the U.S." The company says the tequila brand is expected to top 170,000 cases by the end of this year. To maximize future growth, Diageo says it will build on what it calls "significant international potential of the brand." Casamigos' founders (Clooney, Gerber and Michael Meldman) will continue to promote and lead the tequila brand they created, Diageo says. The company began after Clooney and Gerber built neighboring vacation homes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. "As you do when you're in Mexico, you drink a lot of tequila,"
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Botched Choice For Afghan Army Uniforms Wasted Tens Of Millions Of U.S. Dollars
The Department of Defense procured uniforms for the Afghan Army in a camouflage pattern that is both far more expensive than other options and likely inappropriate for the landscape there, a U.S. government watchdog says. The pattern choice cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $28.2 million extra since 2008, according to a report out Wednesday , and if changed could save up to $72.21 million over the next 10 years. Nearly 1.4 million full uniforms and nearly 90,000 pairs of pants had a camouflage print designed to help military personnel blend in with a forest environment. But according to the report, only 2.1 percent of Afghanistan is comprised of forest. The findings were detailed in a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR — a military agency set up by Congress that audits U.S. spending in Afghanistan. No formal testing was carried out to assess whether the pattern was a good fit for the environment, according to the report. And while it
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Fans Of Pakistan's Cricket Team Arrested For Sedition In India
When Pakistan clobbered India in the ICC Champions Trophy final on Sunday — pulling off an upset so shocking, ESPN called it "some diamond-studded, galactic-scale nonsense" — flabbergasted fans took to the streets in several countries to celebrate the national cricket team's big win. In India, those celebrations got some fans in deep legal trouble. Police have arrested at least 19 people across the country on charges of sedition, according to the Times of India . "While the entire country was saddened by the defeat, these people were raising slogans in favour of Pakistan and burst crackers on Sunday night, threatening peace in the area," Sanjay Pathak, a police inspector in Madhya Pradesh, a state where 15 men were arrested, told the newspaper. "They celebrated with firecrackers, distributing sweets and raising slogans of 'Long live Pakistan,' " another Madhya Pradesh police officer, Ramasray Yadav, told The New York Times . "They expressed hatred toward India and friendship toward
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Former Milwaukee Officer Found Not Guilty In Shooting Death Of Black Man
Updated at 5:54 p.m. ET A jury has found a former Milwaukee police officer not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide in the shooting death of Sylville Smith, a 23-year-old black man, last August. "Cries of outrage" erupted in the courtroom after the verdict was announced, member station WUWM reported . Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who also is black, was in on patrol when he and another police officer stopped two men. The men ran and the officers gave chase, and Heaggan-Brown shot and killed Smith. The death sparked riots on Milwaukee's north side, The Two-Way had reported . After the verdict was announced, Smith's father, Patrick, was quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as saying, "I want the community to calm down and come together." Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said the jury's verdict was "based on the objective evidence before it." He added that he'd "seen nothing in the [body camera] video that was a violation of the law or policy." In charging Heaggan-Brown with
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Former Milwaukee Officer Found Not Guilty In Sylville Smith Shooting
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Capitol Hill Hearings Probe Russian Efforts To Hack U.S. Elections
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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After CEO Resignation, Is Uber Kalanick-less Or Kalanick-free?
If you think of a company as a sports team — let's say, basketball — then Uber is at a point where the players are still on the court, but the coaches and general manager are gone, the arena is filled with jeers and the owner's hair is on fire. The resignation of co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO under pressure from investors (instead of the originally announced leave of absence ) is only the most dramatic of various dramatic turning points in the disorderly narrative arc of Uber. And though business annals are rife with powerful founders who were forced to leave their companies, such stories typically hinge on poor financial results or wrong business decisions. Few companies have had such a rapid fallout from such a vast number of crises stemming from the workplace culture perpetuated from the top, while appearing to be at the peak of their success. (Uber is one of the largest privately held companies, valued at nearly $70 billion.) How long will Kalanick's shadow be over Uber's
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Portugal Wrests Control Over Wildfire That Killed More Than 60 People
Firefighters in Portugal have gained control over a wildfire that swept through central Portugal over the weekend and killed at least 64 people, authorities said Wednesday. But the investigation into what ignited the wildfires, and why they proved so deadly, is just beginning. The fire near the town of Pedrogao Grande "is no longer progressing," Civil Protection Agency spokesman Vitor Vaz Pinto told reporters, according to The Associated Press. The blaze, one of dozens that erupted Saturday, quickly swept through the hilly area about 120 miles northeast of Lisbon. Many people died in their cars as they tried to flee. The New York Times spoke with survivors who described terrifying ordeals as they drove away or huddled in a water tank to escape the flames. "The moment will come to determine what happened," Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Sunday. That time may have arrived. The head of Portugal's firefighters' association said Wednesday that he believes the fire was started by "a
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Disability Rights and Parenthood ~ Western Meadowlark ~ Bismarck Tea Shop Expands to West Fargo
Wednesday, June 21 – Two Wheelchairs and a Baby is a story featuring the efforts of a disabled couple from Minnesota to have a child. It comes to us courtesy of the Death, Sex, and Money podcast from WNYC Studios in collaboration with Cosmopolitan.com. ~~~ In this week’s Natural North Dakota with Chuck Lura we learn about North Dakota’s state bird, the Western Meadowlark~~~ There's no shortage of coffee shops. Tea cafes though, that's a different story. Terisena Hintz and her husband Jerry stumbled into the tea world while researching spices. They opened Steep Me a Cup of Tea in Bismarck in 2008 and expanded to West Fargo last fall. Terisina visits with John Harris in this excerpt from the Prairie Pulse television show. ~~~ Today’s Dakota Datebook is another in our series acknowledging 100 years since The Great War. See all those stories HERE .
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Natural North Dakota: Western Meadowlark
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'Combat Medicine:' Afghanistan Vet Seeks To Help Others Through Hip-Hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNQTvFkS_MM There is no one sure way to reach combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or substance abuse. But a new hip-hop album called Combat Medicine, released Wednesday, might help. It was written and performed by George "Mik" Todd, who goes by the name Doc Todd. He's a former Fleet Marine Force corpsman — essentially a combat medic — who served alongside the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan. Todd's style is tough and direct in a way that only one veteran can be to another. In the song "Not Alone," he urges veterans to take action in their own recovery. Take those bottles out, dog and pour 'em in the sink. Take the needles out of your arm And the gun away from your forehead. It's time, man. You've been through enough pain. Stand up. It's time to stand back up. Todd says the song is about empowerment, "about taking charge of your life, taking charge of your transition" from the combat zone to civilian life. In his own
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Before Her Teacher's Murder, This 'Keepers' Witness Was Already Living A Nightmare
This story includes content some readers may find disturbing. Who killed Sister Cathy Cesnik? The Baltimore nun and school teacher was murdered in 1969, and in the Netflix documentary series The Keepers , her students tell a troubling story of abuse by priests, alleged police complicity and a possible cover-up by the Catholic Church. Jean Wehner is one of those students. She attended Archbishop Keough High School in the late 1960s. Wehner tells NPR that she was "systematically abused, manipulated, raped, conditioned by [school chaplain] Joseph Maskell for a good year and a half before any of this with Sister Cathy happened." Wehner buried her memories of the abuse, and they stayed buried until 1992, when she began to remember things — like telling Cesnik about what was happening to her. After their conversation, Cesnik transferred to a different school, then disappeared. She was found dead nearly two months later. Her murder remains unsolved. Wehner believes Cesnik may have been killed
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Democrats Seek Records On Jared Kushner As Administration Tries To Stifle Oversight
Updated at 5:52 p.m. ET Democrats on the House Oversight Committee want to see White House records on the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, his security clearance and his access to classified information. In a letter to White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the oversight panel's 18 Democrats question why Kushner's security clearance hasn't been revoked. The Democrats say Kushner, one of President Trump's closest advisers, had meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and the CEO of a Russian state-owned bank. They say he failed to disclose the meetings as he applied for security clearance and allowed administration officials to say he'd had no such meetings. "It is unclear why Mr. Kushner continues to have access to classified information while these allegations are being investigated," says the letter, which seeks similar records on former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn was asked to resign in February after misleading Vice President Pence about his
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