Serial robbery crew foiled by pawn shop security guard

DO YOU RECOGNIZE THEM? Houston police believe these suspects are tied to two other armed robberies in the area.

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  • Trump is reportedly planning a made-for-TV exit on Air Force One from the White House to a rally on Inauguration Day, hoping to pull viewers from Biden

    Trump is reportedly considering breaking democratic tradition by boycotting Joe Biden's inauguration and staging a rally instead.

  • Hundreds pay respects at funeral of Chechen refugee who beheaded French teacher

    Several hundred people paid their respects last week at a funeral in Russia for the Chechnyan teenager who beheaded a teacher in France over cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. Samuel Paty, a 47-year old history teacher, became the target of a hostile online campaign after discussing the cartoons in a class on freedom of speech and was eventually attacked and murdered by Abdoulakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, in October. Anzorov was shot dead by police shortly after the attack on October 16. His body was repatriated to Russia last week to allow his family to bury him in his ancestral village in the predominantly Muslim region of Chechnya. Several hundred people attended the funeral on Friday in the village of Shalazhi, chanting prayers on their way to the cemetery, a video released by several media outlets showed. Salman Magamadov, the village chief, insisted in an interview with the Podyem media outlet on Monday that Anzorov received an ordinary burial without “any special honours”. Prominent Muslim clerics in Russia have used the attack to condemn French authorities for mocking their religion. Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Chechnya, said French President Emmanuel Macron was to blame for allegedly encouraging insults against Muslims. Mr Kadyrov later sought to distance his region from the attack, insisting that the teenager, an ethnic Chechen, was born in Moscow and moved to France when he was a small child.

  • Pfizer and Moderna reportedly reject invitations to Trump's vaccine 'PR stunt'

    It seems the executives leading COVID-19 vaccine development know better than to attend a big gathering right about now.On Tuesday, the White House will be hosting a "vaccine summit" apparently meant to bring vaccine developers, scientists, and government leaders together ahead of distribution of the coronavirus vaccine. But drug industry leaders have decided the event is more of a "public relations stunt," and some big names aren't even planning to attend, Stat News reports.Pfizer and Moderna are currently at the top of the COVID-19 vaccine world, having produced vaccine candidates that are more than 90 percent effective at stopping transmission of the disease. But despite the fact that both of the companies' CEOs had been invited to the vaccine summit, neither plans to attend, two sources tell Stat. The summit comes just days before the Food and Drug Administration is set to examine Pfizer's vaccine data, and a week before it will look at Moderna's. Both reviews will likely result in emergency use authorizations for the two vaccines.Many other companies involved in the vaccine distribution process — FedEx, UPS, Walgreens, and CVS among them — are expected to send representatives to the event. But they "are likely to send lower-ranking executives as opposed to their CEOs," sources familiar with the event's planning tell Stat. And despite an apparent conflict of interest, Peter Marks, the FDA official who heads vaccine approvals, may end up attending the summit, Stat reports.More stories from theweek.com The post-Mitch McConnell GOP is going to be a carnival of madness Would Republicans believe election conspiracy theories without Trump? I'm rooting for pro-democracy Republicans

  • Former Alabama senator dies of Covid, in his last words warns, 'We messed up'

    “We let our guards down. Please tell everybody to be careful. This is real, and if you get diagnosed, get help immediately,” former Sen. Larry Dixon said.

  • Despite Biden pledge, coronavirus bill in Congress now may be all Americans get: analysts

    President-elect Joe Biden has called the $908 billion coronavirus aid bill taking shape in Congress a "downpayment" toward a bigger stimulus next year, but if it passes, that is all U.S. businesses and workers should count on, economists and political analysts say. There is likely to be little appetite among Republicans for supporting a second round of $1 trillion-plus spending after Biden takes office on Jan. 20 - a task that would be made more difficult if Republicans retain control of the Senate in Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia - said John Lieber, managing director of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy. "If they do the full bipartisan $900 billion, then I think it's a big ask to do anything new after Biden takes office," said Lieber, a former adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

  • Barefoot toddler among record 111 migrants to cross Channel in December

    A barefoot toddler was among 111 migrants to cross the Channel in small boats on Monday, marking a record number of arrivals for a day in December. Last week, Home Secretary Priti Patel agreed to pay France £28 million to double the number of police patrolling French beaches, but five packed with men, women and children made the perilous journey and reached the UK. Pictures show at least five children being taken into care by Border Force staff, while dozens of soaked, shivering adults were wrapped in blankets as the temperature barely crept above freezing. Channel crossings by migrants this late in the year are less common, and bring significant additional risks with the choppy water and cold weather, but yesterday more than 100 people were picked up and taken to Dover, the most on record in December The previous high was on Boxing day last year, when 49 people arrived by small boat, after 40 others crossed on Christmas Day.

  • The Trump administration reportedly rejected an offer from Pfizer for more COVID-19 vaccine doses, and now other countries might get them

    The Trump administration purchased 100 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine, but it's a two-dose treatment so it will only go to 50 million Americans.

  • Brazil's president rejects COVID-19 vaccine, undermining a century of progress toward universal inoculation

    The world is eagerly awaiting the release of several COVID-19 vaccines, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is not. “I’m not going to take it. It’s my right,” he said in a Nov. 26 social media broadcast. Bolsonaro, who came down with COVID-19 in July, has also criticized face masks. He and his more faithful supporters oppose any suggestion of mandatory coronavirus vaccinations. Vaccine resistance has a long history in Brazil. In November 1904, thousands of people in the city of Rio de Janeiro protested government-mandated smallpox vaccinations in a famous revolt that nearly ended with a coup. Making modern BrazilThe smallpox vaccine had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier. But the syringes were long, left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis. Between 1898 and 1904, only 2% to 10% of Rio’s population was vaccinated yearly, according to historian Sidney Chalhoub. In 1904, smallpox killed 0.4% of Rio residents – a higher percentage of the population than COVID-19’s victims in New York City this year.But these were not the only reasons Brazil made vaccinations mandatory in 1904. As part of a “modernization” plan to attract European immigration and foreign investment, President Rodrigues Alves was committed to eradicating epidemics – not just smallpox, but also yellow fever and the bubonic plague.To rid Rio de Janeiro, then the nation’s capital, of sanitary hazards while opening space for Parisian-style avenues and buildings, hundreds of tenements were demolished between 1903 and 1909. Almost 40,000 people – mostly Afro-Brazilians but also poor Italian, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants – were evicted and removed from downtown Rio. Many were left homeless, forced to resettle on nearby hillsides or in distant rural areas. Meanwhile, public health agents accompanied by armed police systematically disinfected homes with sulfur that destroyed furniture and other belongings – whether residents welcomed them or not. Conspiracy and barricadesPoliticians and military officers who opposed President Alves saw opportunity in the outrage these health initiatives caused. They stoked discontent.With the help of labor organizers and news editors, Alves’ opponents led a campaign against Brazil’s public health mandates throughout 1904. Newspapers reported on violent home disinfections and forced vaccinations. Senators and other public figures declared that mandatory vaccinations encroached on people’s homes and bodies.In mid-November of that year, thousands of protesters gathered in public squares to rally against public health efforts. Rio police reacted with disproportionate force, triggering six days of unrest in the city. A racially diverse crowd of students, construction workers, port workers and other residents fought back, armed with rocks, housewares or the tools of their trade, flipping over streetcars to barricade the streets. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, conspirators were mobilizing young military cadets. Their plan: to overthrow Alves’ government. Their scheme was foiled when the president called upon both the Army and the Navy to contain protesters and detain alleged insurgents. Brazil’s great vaccine revolt was soon suppressed. The language of rightsAfterward, newspapers portrayed protesters as an ignorant mass, manipulated by cunning politicians. They deemed one of the uprising’s popular leaders, Horácio José da Silva – known as “Black Silver” – a “disorderly thug.”But Brazil’s vaccine revolt was more than a cynical political manipulation. Digging into archives, historians like me are learning what really motivated the uprising.The violent and segregationist features of Alves’ urban plan are one obvious answer. In early 20th-century Brazil, most people – women, those who couldn’t read, the unemployed – couldn’t vote. For these Brazilians, the streets were the only place to have their voices heard.But why would they so virulently oppose methods that controlled the spread of disease?Delving into newspapers and legal records, I have found that critics of Brazil’s 1904 public health drive often expressed their opposition in terms of “inviolability of the home,” both on the streets and in courts.For elite Brazilians, invoking this constitutional right was about protecting the privacy of their households, where men ruled over wives, children and servants. Public health agents threatened this patriarchal authority by demanding access to homes and women’s bodies.Poor men and women in Rio also held patriarchal values. But for them there was more than privacy at stake in 1904. Throughout the 19th century, enslaved Afro-Brazilians had formed families and built homes, even on plantations, carving out spaces of relative freedom from their masters. After slavery was abolished in 1888, many freed Afro-Brazilians shared crowded tenements with immigrants. By the time of Alves’s vaccination drive, the poor of Rio had been fighting eviction and police violence for decades. For Black Brazilians, then, defending their rights to choose what to do – or not to do – with their homes and bodies was part of a much longer struggle for social, economic and political inclusion. Deadly learning experienceFour years after the 1904 revolt, Rio was struck by another smallpox epidemic. With so many people unvaccinated, deaths doubled; almost 1% of the city perished.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]It was a deadly learning experience. From then on, Brazilian leaders framed mandatory smallpox, measles and other vaccines as a means to protect the common good, and invested in educational campaigns to explain why. Throughout the 20th century, vaccinations were extremely successful in Brazil. Since the 1990s, 95% of children have been vaccinated, though the numbers are dropping.Today, Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. As in the past, Afro-Brazilians are hurting more than others.By invoking Brazilians’ individual right not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, President Bolsonaro is ignoring the lessons of 1904 – undermining a century of hard work fighting disease in Brazil.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Pedro Cantisano, University of Nebraska Omaha.Read more: * COVID-19 is deadlier for black Brazilians, a legacy of structural racism that dates back to slavery * In Brazil’s raging pandemic, domestic workers fear for their lives – and their jobsPedro Cantisano does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

  • Schumer: Biden ‘Considering’ Forgiving $50,000 in Student Loan Debt via Executive Action

    President-elect Joe Biden is “considering” forgiving $50,000 in federal student loan debt for low-income and middle class students, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Monday.Schumer held a press conference alongside Democratic Congressmen-elect Ritchie Torres, Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman of New York, during which the group announced they have “come to the conclusion” that Biden can “forgive $50,000 of debt the first day he becomes president.”“You don’t need Congress, all you need is the flick of a pen and President-elect Biden — then President Biden — can make this happen,” Schumer said.> JUST IN: Sen. Chuck Schumer: President-elect Joe Biden is "considering" forgiving $50,000 in federal student loan debt for all borrowers. pic.twitter.com/KS4WNgAb79> > -- The Hill (@thehill) December 7, 2020He added that the group is urging Biden to choose a secretary of education who will support student loan forgiveness because “it’s up to the secretary of education officially, but if President Biden wants it, I’m sure it will happen.”“This debt is a huge burden on the backs of our students standing in the way of them and their economy and it stays with them for a very long time,” he said.He said they are calling on Biden to take executive action to administratively cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt for federal student loan borrowers with an income below $125,000, and to do so in a way that the borrowers would have no tax liability when they receive the forgiveness.Schumer said he has spoken to Biden about "how important" the loan forgiveness is and that he is "considering" it.Asked if Biden will have the executive authority to forgive the debt, the New York Senator said the president-elect is researching that and "I believe when he does his research, he will find that he does."When asked what the forgiveness would mean for families who have “made sacrifices to pay off student loans” Schumer said it would be “good for everybody.”“Lots of students paid off student loans but it’s such a burden it’s good for everybody to make sure that this debt is vanquished,” he said. “It’s never been this high.”He added that when he finished college it cost $1,700 but “people can’t afford it now.”

  • 10 Indoor Plant Stands That Seriously Stand Out

    Take your home garden to the next level this winterOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Rep. Trent Kelly Becomes Highest-Ranking Military Member in Congress

    An engineer and combat veteran, Kelly served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and deployed to Iraq in 2005 as operations officer.

  • Los Angeles police move in on BLM protesters

    Video shared online shows police moving in on the protesters and hitting them with batons. One protester was reportedly arrested. Protesters say they are opposed to Garcetti, who co-chaired Biden's campaign, based on his handling of issues such as homelessness and the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Cops seek killers who kidnapped, tortured and executed two truckers in Opa-locka

    Investigators are trying to find who kidnapped, tied up, tortured and fatally shot two truckers execution-style in Opa-locka over the weekend.

  • Thousands protest in London against India's farming reforms

    Thousands of people protested and blocked traffic in central London on Sunday over Indian agricultural reforms that have triggered mass demonstrations in India, and police made 13 arrests over breaches of COVID regulations. Tens of thousands of farmers have protested in India against three laws the government says are meant to overhaul antiquated procurement procedures and give growers more options to sell their produce. Farmers fear the legislation, passed in September, will eventually dismantle India's regulated markets and stop the government from buying wheat and rice at guaranteed prices, leaving them at the mercy of private buyers.

  • Schools confront 'off the rails' numbers of failing grades

    The first report cards of the school year are arriving with many more Fs than usual in a dismal sign of the struggles students are experiencing with distance learning. School districts from coast to coast have reported the number of students failing classes has risen by as many as two or three times — with English language learners and disabled and disadvantaged students suffering the most. “It was completely off the rails from what is normal for us, and that was obviously very alarming,” said Erik Jespersen, principal of Oregon's McNary High School, where 38% of grades in late October were failing, compared with 8% in normal times.

  • We scanned the DNA of 8,000 people to see how facial features are controlled by genes

    Takeaways * A new study reveals more than 130 regions in human DNA play a role in sculpting facial features. * The nose is the facial feature most influenced by your genes. * Understanding the link between specific genes and facial features could be useful for treating facial malformations or for orthodontics.* * *You might think it’s rather obvious that your facial appearance is determined by your genes. Just look in the family photo album and observe the same nose, eyes or chin on your grandparents, cousins and uncles and aunts. Perhaps you have seen or know someone with a genetic syndrome – that often results from a damaging alteration to one or more genes – and noticed the often distinctive facial features.You may be surprised to learn that until very recently, geneticists had virtually no understanding of which parts of our DNA were linked to even the most basic aspects of facial appearance. This gap in our knowledge was particularly galling since facial appearance plays such an important role in basic human interactions. The availability of large data sets combining genetic information with facial images that can be measured has rapidly advanced the pace of discovery.So, what do we know about the genetics of facial appearance? Can we reliably predict a person’s face from their DNA? What are the implications for health and disease? We are an anthropologist and a human geneticist whose research focuses on uncovering the biological factors that underlie the similarities and differences in facial appearance among humans. How many genes are associated with facial appearance?We still don’t have a complete answer to this question, but recent work published in Nature Genetics by our collaborative research team has identified more than 130 chromosomal regions associated with specific aspects of facial shape. Identifying these regions is a critical first step toward understanding how genetics impacts our faces and how such knowledge could impact human health in the future.We accomplished this by scanning the DNA of more than 8,000 individuals to look for statistical relationships between about seven million genetic markers – known locations in the genetic code where humans vary – and dozens of shape measurements derived from 3D facial images. When we find a statistical association between a facial feature and one or more genetic markers, this points us to a very precise region of DNA on a chromosome. The genes located around that region then become our prime candidates for facial features like nose or lip shape, especially if we have other relevant information about their function – for example, they may be active when the face is forming in the embryo. While more than 130 chromosomal regions may seem like a large number, we are likely only scratching the surface. We expect that thousands of such regions – and therefore thousands of genes – contribute to facial appearance. Many of the genes at these chromosomal regions will have such small effects, we may never have enough statistical power to detect them. What do we know about these genes?When we look collectively at the implicated genes at these 130-plus DNA regions, some interesting patterns emerged. Your nose, like it or not, is the part of your face most influenced by your genes. Perhaps not surprisingly, areas like the cheeks, which are highly influenced by lifestyle factors like diet, showed the fewest genetic associations.The ways that these genes influence facial shape was not at all uniform. Some genes, we found, had highly localized effects and impacted very specific parts of the face, while others had broad effects involving multiple parts. We also found that a large proportion of these genes are involved in basic developmental processes that build our bodies – bone formation, for example – and, in many cases, are the same genes that have been implicated in rare syndromes and facial anomalies like cleft palate. We found it interesting that there was a high degree of overlap between the genes involved in facial and limb development, which may provide an important clue as to why many genetic syndromes are characterized by both hand and facial malformations. In another curious twist, we found some evidence that the genes involved in facial shape may also be involved in cancer – an intriguing finding given emerging evidence that individuals treated for pediatric cancer show some distinctive facial features. Can someone take my DNA and construct an accurate picture of my face?It is unlikely that today, or for the foreseeable future, someone could take a sample of your DNA and use it to construct an image of your face. Predicting an individual’s facial appearance, like any complex genetic trait, is a very difficult task. To put that statement in context, the 130-plus genetic regions we identified explain less than 10% of the variation in facial shape. However, even if we understood all of the genes involved in facial appearance, prediction would still be a monstrous challenge. This is because complex traits like facial shape are not determined by simply summing up the effects of a bunch of individual genes. Facial features are influenced by many biological and non-biological factors: age, diet, climate, hormones, trauma, disease, sun exposure, biomechanical forces and surgery. All of these factors interact with our genome in complex ways that we have not even begun to understand. To add to this picture of complexity, genes interact with one another; this is known as “epistasis,” and its effects can be complex and unpredictable. It is not surprising then, that researchers attempting to predict individual facial features from DNA have been unsuccessful. This is not to say that such prediction will never be possible, but if someone is telling you they can do this today, you should be highly skeptical. How might research connecting genes and faces benefit humans?One of the most exciting developments in medicine in the 21st century is the use of patients’ genetic information to create personalized treatment plans, with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]A deeper understanding of how genes influence the timing and rate of facial growth could be an invaluable tool for planning treatments in fields like orthodontics or reconstructive surgery. For example, if someday we can use genetics to help predict when a child’s jaw will hit its peak growth potential, orthodontists may be able to use this information to help determine the optimal time to intervene for maximal effect. Likewise, knowledge of how genes work individually and in concert to determine the size and shape of facial features can provide new molecular targets for drug therapies aimed at correcting facial growth deficiencies. Lastly, greater knowledge of the genes that build human faces may offer us new insights into the root causes of congenital facial malformations, which can profoundly impact quality of life for those affected and their families.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Seth M. Weinberg, University of Pittsburgh and John R. Shaffer, University of Pittsburgh.Read more: * Joaquin Phoenix’s lips mocked – here’s what everyone should know about cleft lip * What’s in your genome? Parents-to-be want to knowSeth M. Weinberg receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. John R. Shaffer receives funding from the University of Pittsburgh and the National Institutes of Health.

  • Trump considering over-the-top WH exit to overshadow Biden inauguration

    As January 2021 nears and White House administrations are set to change, the outgoing president is reportedly planning a dramatic exit from the oval office. According to Axios, President Donald Trump has decided to leave Washington D.C. in a dramatic fashion. The outlet reported sources close to the Trump team revealed his plan to draw attention away from the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

  • New stamps honor Japanese American vets, Chinese American physicist

    The stamps recognize Japanese Americans who fought for a country that imprisoned them, and a woman physicist who excelled in a male-dominated field.

  • U.S. Supreme Court hears World War Two-era Jewish property claims

    The lingering legacy of World War Two reached the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as the justices weighed two cases involving claims by Jews in Germany and Hungary and their descendants whose property was taken amid persecution that culminated in the Holocaust. The justices heard arguments in the two cases that hinge upon a federal law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that limits the jurisdiction of American courts over lawsuits against foreign governments. In one case, the justices considered Germany's bid to avoid facing a lawsuit in a U.S. court over medieval artwork that its former Nazi government pressured Jewish art dealers to sell in the 1930s.

  • Pope: Christmas a sign of hope amid difficulties of pandemic

    Pope Francis says the Christmas season provides reason for hope amid the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic. During his Sunday blessing, Francis noted that the Vatican's Christmas tree had gone up last week in St. Peter's Square, and that work is underway to build the life-size Nativity scene next to it. Pointing to the tree from his studio window over the square, Francis said such symbols of Christmas “are signs of hope, especially in this difficult period."