Cyclone Debbie Slams Into Australia, Knocking Out Power To Thousands

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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Howling winds, heavy rain and huge seas pounded Australia’s northeast on Tuesday, damaging homes, wrecking jetties and cutting power to thousands of people as Tropical Cyclone Debbie tore through Queensland state’s far north.

Wind gusts stronger than 160 mph were recorded at tourist resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as the powerful storm made landfall as a category four, one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level.

It was later downgraded to a category three storm. Forecasters said high winds could persist for as long as 10 hours, although it would then weaken rapidly and was expected to be downgraded to category one before dawn on Wednesday.

Police said one man was badly hurt when a wall collapsed at Proserpine, about 900 km (560 miles) northwest of the Queensland capital, Brisbane, and was taken to hospital.

However, the weather was still too bad to assess damage fully or mount an emergency response.

“We will also receive more reports of injuries, if not deaths. We need to be prepared for that,” Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart told reporters in Brisbane.

Cyclone Debbie made landfall at Airlie Beach, north of Proserpine, shortly after midday local time (0200 GMT), knocking out telephone services.

“It’s very noisy: Screaming, howling wind … sounds like a freight train,” Jan Clifford told Reuters by text from Airlie Beach as the cyclone made landfall.

“Still blowing like crazy,” she said four hours later.

Authorities had urged thousands of people in low-lying areas to flee their homes on Monday, in what would have been the biggest evacuation seen in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974.

CATASTROPHE DECLARED

Torrential rain flooded streets and wind smashed windows, uprooted trees and tossed debris through streets, while jetties at Airlie Beach marina were wrecked, Nine Network television pictures showed.

Power was cut for 48,000 people in a wide area between the towns of Bowen and Mackay, north and south of Airlie Beach, Ergon Energy spokesman John Fowler said.

Ports at Abbot Point, Mackay and Hay Point were shut, and Townsville airport was closed. Airlines Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia suspended all flights to and from the region and said planes could also be grounded on Wednesday.

BHP Billiton and Glencore halted work at their coal mines in the storm’s path.

The Insurance Council of Australia declared Cyclone Debbie a catastrophe, making it easier to make claims, but said in a statement it was too early to estimate the cost of damage.

With an eye 50 km (30 miles) wide, the cyclone had earlier damaged tourist resorts, washed away beaches and tore boats from moorings as it swept through the Whitsunday islands, guests told Reuters by telephone.

Cyclone Debbie is the strongest storm to hit Queensland since Cyclone Yasi destroyed homes and crops and devastated island resorts in 2011.

Authorities had feared tidal surges in low-lying areas as the storm whipped up waves and currents and lifted sea levels, but said later that danger had eased.

Holidaymakers tried to make the best of it as they bunkered down in resort buildings. “Go to the Whitsundays they said, it’d be fun they said, beautiful weather over here,” holidaymaker Kurt Moore told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“I’m so glad we got evacuated out of the place we were staying it, I think we’d be pooping watermelons right now to be honest,” he said.

Despite issuing evacuation orders, police said they were not sure how many people had heeded their advice.

That did not deter some thrill-seeking bodyboarders who paddled out to surf in the heaving seas at Airlie Beach, television footage showed.

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Inmate's Death In A Hot Shower Is Ruled An Accident. But Documents 'Raise Problems.'

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The June 2012 death of Darren Rainey, an inmate at the Dade Correctional Institution in South Florida, attracted national attention after other inmates claimed he was burned like “a boiled lobster” after about two hours in a shower that guards had modified to punish prisoners.

A Florida prosecutor issued a 101-page report earlier this month that cleared guards of any wrongdoing in Rainey’s death. The prosecutor, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, called Rainey’s death an accident resulting from his schizophrenia and heart disease and from confinement in the shower room.

But a trove of official documents reviewed by The Huffington Post indicates that some information from police, the prison and emergency services was not included in the prosecutor’s final report, which raises questions about the circumstances surrounding Rainey’s death. A review of the documents was permitted by a person with close access to the investigation who asked not to be identified sharing non-public information. 

Numerous official photos taken of Rainey’s body several hours after he died were also reviewed by HuffPost. The images reveal extreme damage to his skin, with wounds over his entire body and significant sections of skin missing, exposing red and white tissue and, in some areas, what appear to be blood vessels. A medical examiner who has reviewed the Rainey autopsy and to whom HuffPost described the information contained in the records says the cause of death as stated doesn’t make sense. (HuffPost was not given permission to copy or share the actual documents.)

Some of the information in the records HuffPost reviewed has been referenced in court records or the reporting of The Miami Herald’s Julie Brown, who has followed the case for years. Here’s what we found in comparing the information from the documents and photos to the prosecutor’s report.

The prosecutor’s report omits that the water was too hot for an investigator’s skin.

One record, dated Sept. 10, 2014, contains the transcript of an interview with Capt. Darlene Dixon, the environmental health and safety officer at the prison, who, two days after Rainey’s death, was ordered to check the shower’s water temperature by Warden Jerry Cummings. (Cummings was fired two years after Rainey’s death and after another inmate died.) 

The shower didn’t have working water controls in the room, and the water didn’t spray from a shower head. It had been rigged to use water taps in an adjacent janitorial closet, where piping that carried hot and cold water from the faucet went up the shared wall, through the wall and into the shower room.

Dixon told investigators about her first attempt to test the water in the shower room. After the prison officer who accompanied her turned on the hot water from inside the janitorial closet, the water hit the wall of the shower and splashed “on her hand, and was hurting her because it was too hot,” according to an interview report reviewed by HuffPost. Steam “appeared in the shower within a few minutes of turning on the hot water,” Dixon said, according to the report of her interview with Miami-Dade police Det. Wilbert Sanchez, the lead investigator.

But these details do not appear in the prosecutor’s report. It describes Dixon taking the temperature only at the tap, which, according to the original investigative interview, was actually her second attempt to test the water. At the hot water tap in the janitor’s closet, using a meat thermometer borrowed from the prison’s food services department because her digital thermometer was broken, the water registered 160 degrees ― 40 degrees higher than the maximum mandated temperature setting for hot water in the prison, the prosecutor’s report says.

Most adults will suffer third-degree burns if exposed to water hotter than 150 degrees for even a few seconds. First-degree burns cause redness, second-degree burns create swelling and blistering and third-degree burns go through the skin to deeper tissues, according to WebMD.

The prosecutor’s report highlights the county medical examiner’s conclusion that Rainey wasn’t burned. But a paramedic noted skin burns in his report.

A medic’s record reviewed by HuffPost from the night Rainey died indicates that he suffered burns despite the county medical examiner’s conclusion in the prosecutor’s report that he did not. Lt. Alexander Lopez, a firefighter and paramedic with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, reported that he examined Rainey’s body about 50 minutes after he was found dead on the shower floor “with 2nd and 3rd degree burns on approximately 30 percent of his body.” Also, Lopez notes that CPR was administered to Rainey and that when he arrived his body was “cool” to the touch. Rainey could have been dead up to 30 minutes before his body was discovered, according to the prosecutor’s report.

The report notes the CPR Rainey received and Lopez’s view that Rainey’s body was “cool” but omits the skin burn information. Instead, the report suggests that Lopez believed what he saw were “burns and/or skin slippage,” the report reads.

The prosecutor’s report says a nurse failed to take Rainey’s body temperature. But in her original report, she noted that she had and it registered nearly 105 degrees.

An emergency room record from the Florida Department of Corrections dated the night of Rainey’s death also notes substantial burns on Rainey’s body. Britney Wilson, who worked at Dade Correctional Institution as a licensed practical nurse, writes in her report, which indicates she examined Rainey’s body 10 minutes after it was discovered, that he was found with “1st degree burns to 90% of his body” and that his skin was “hot/warm” to the touch.

She also notes that she took his “tympanic” body temperature (via his ear), and it was 104.9 degrees. (A body temperature above 103 is considered dangerous, according to the Mayo Clinic.) These details are largely omitted from the prosecutor’s memo, which indicates only that Wilson observed that Rainey’s skin “appeared red and wrinkled,” that she told a 911 operator that “Rainey’s body appeared to be burned” and that she “noticed some skin slippage.” The most notable inconsistency is that the memo says Wilson tried  “unsuccessfully” to take Rainey’s temperature.

Photos of Rainey’s body and indications of thermometer readings suggest his body temperature was “much higher than normal when he died,” a top pathologist says.

HuffPost also examined about 10 images of Rainey’s body taken by county officials about 12 hours after he was discovered dead.

The disturbing images show severe wounds on numerous sections of Rainey’s skin. Entire swaths of skin and, in places, what appear to be multiple layers are either missing, bunched up at the edges of wounds or hanging loosely at the edges of wounds.

Some wounds are a deep red, with blood vessels clearly visible. Other wounds expose underlying tissue.

Rainey’s chest and back appear to be the most severely damaged. His chest wound exposes a dark red layer of tissue from his neck to mid-abdomen. White tissue is exposed on his entire upper and mid-back with some red splotches throughout the large exposed area.

The skin on his left arm appears severely wounded, with deep red and white tissue exposed as well as sections of blood vessels. Rainey had a tattoo on his upper left arm, under his shoulder, which is nearly indecipherable because it appears that several layers of skin are missing.

Rainey’s legs show wounds on his thighs, shins and calves.

Multiple skin wounds are visible on his forehead, cheeks, ears, neck and nose, with what appears to be the deepest wound on the bridge of his nose, where white and red tissue is exposed.

One image shows a rectal thermometer reading of about 94 degrees ― the temperature of his body believed to have been taken the morning after his death.

The photos and the temperature reading were described to Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally recognized forensic pathologist known for his work on many high-profile deaths, including the private autopsy conducted on Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and for his work on HBO’s “Autopsy” series.

Baden explained that the 94 degree temperature may be unusual. “This temperature would indicate, if the photos were taken about 10 or 12 hours after he died, that his body temperature was much higher than normal when he died,” Baden said.

He explained that when a person dies, body temperature drops about 1.5 degrees every hour, on average, depending on the temperature of the environment the body is kept in. If a person dies in a 70 degree room, 10 hours later, pathologists would expect the body temperature to have dropped about 15 degrees. And that would speed up if the body was placed in a cold environment or slow down in a warm one. Although it’s not clear if Rainey’s body was put into refrigeration in the medical examiner’s office before these photos were taken, that would be a standard procedure, Baden said. That means that if Rainey’s body temperature was still 94 degrees roughly 12 hours after he died, his body temperature may have been as high as 109 degrees when he died.

In the Rainey autopsy report, Miami-Dade medical examiner Dr. Emma Lew notes that Rainey’s rectal temperature is at 94 degrees 12 hours after death. That, coupled with a 102 degree temperature taken by a second nurse after he was found dead, does indicate that Rainey “had an elevated body temperature at the time of death,” Lew notes. However, because it remains unknown what Rainey’s body temperature was when he first entered the shower room, Lew doesn’t conclude that it was the hot shower water that caused Rainey’s increased body temperature. Rainey had defecated in his cell and had smeared feces on himself, his cell and bedsheets, which is why he was taken to the shower, the prosecutor’s report said.

Lew writes that it cannot be ruled out that Rainey’s high temperature may have been associated with a “psychotic episode which prompted him to smear feces on his body.”

The medical examiner’s opinion in the prosecutor’s report cites causes of death that “raise problems,” a forensic pathologist says.

Baden, who has examined Rainey’s official autopsy report but who did not examine any of the documents or photos that HuffPost reviewed, also questioned the stated cause of death. Baden says it “raises problems.”

“Number one, schizophrenia is a disease; it isn’t a cause of death. Schizophrenia is not a cause of sudden death,” Baden said. Secondly, Baden explained, according to the autopsy report, Rainey’s heart disease is “minimal” and his “heart is not remarkable for a 50-year-old person.” Lastly, Baden said, the indication that confinement in the shower also contributed to his death “does not make sense.”

“That wouldn’t cause death itself,” Baden said. “People don’t die in confined spaces unless there’s something else happening. The only way you really die in a confined space is if you use up all the oxygen.”

Baden also questions the notion that the death was accidental.

“What is being described is a natural death,” Baden said. “Even if it were schizophrenia and it was heart disease, why then is it an accident? Because of the confined space? No. The cause of death as indicated does not appear to me to be consistent with the autopsy findings.”

“Skin slippage” doesn’t explain the state of Rainey’s body, a pathology expert says.

Rainey’s skin wounds, described as “skin slippage” by Dr. Lew, were the result of normal post-mortem decomposition, “exposure to a warm, moist environment” and friction or pressure placed on his body by medics or prison officials who were trying to revive him or when they moved his body.

Baden also questions this conclusion.

“Skin slippage can occur in decomposition, but not in a matter of hours. That doesn’t make sense either that there’d be skin slippage of any kind at this point after his death,” Baden said. “The circumstances I’m aware of along with the autopsy report would indicate the cause of death is not accurate and that he died of the heat, the hot water that he was placed under. The cause of death as attributed does not make sense.”

Prosecutors disregarded the testimony of multiple inmates because they say it was inconsistent.

Multiple inmates claimed that the shower had been used to punish uncooperative inmates, the prosecutor report noted. Some inmates said that they saw Rainey’s lifeless body carried out of the shower and that his skin appeared to be peeling off his body and was red in some sections. One inmate claimed Rainey looked like a “boiled lobster.” Other inmates said they could hear Rainey screaming in the shower for several minutes.

One inmate, Harold Hempstead, who worked as an orderly in the mental ward building of the prison that Rainey was housed in on the night he died, said he heard Rainey cry out, “I’m sorry,” “I won’t do it anymore” and “I can’t take it no more,” until the inmate “heard a fall,” according to the prosecutor’s report.

The prosecutor’s office ultimately found the inmates’ allegations not credible. They said Hempstead’s timeline of events did not match that of prison surveillance video from the night Rainey died and said he couldn’t have seen some of things he claimed to have seen. Prosecutors also suggested that other inmates’ allegations may have been influenced by meetings with Hempstead.

The prosecutors concluded that there was no evidence that the shower had ever been used for punishment and that the shower Rainey was placed in was neither “dangerous nor unsafe.”

Lew, the medical examiner, ultimately concluded that claims that temperatures inside the shower room were “excessively high” were unsubstantiated. She dismissed reports that the water temperature was 160 degrees and said that there was no evidence Rainey had actually suffered any burns to his body at all. Lew said that people with schizophrenia can have an “impaired ability to compensate for heat stress” and that, coupled with a medication he was taking to help with his mental illness, it could have contributed to Rainey suffering from hyperthermia in the shower and a “pre-disposition to sudden cardiac arrest.”

When contacted about the documents and photos reviewed by HuffPost, Ed Griffith, public information officer for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, said that in the course of its investigation into the incident, the office “amassed a large volume” of materials and as such it would not be possible to include every detail in their report.

“The contradictions and inconsistencies contained within the materials are part of the reason for the prolonged consideration,” Griffith said.

When asked about the water temperature in the shower room that “hurt” the skin of Dixon, the prison health and safety inspector, Griffith explained that Dixon tested the hot water two days after Rainey’s death, which “would not be determinative evidence of the water temperature two days earlier.”

With regard to the medic’s report describing “2nd and 3rd degree burns on approximately 30 percent of his body,” Griffith said that those details were a “recounting” of what others at the scene of Rainey’s death told him when he arrived and does not reflect “an independent medical evaluation.”

Griffith provided HuffPost with Lopez’s sworn testimony about what he saw the night of Rainey’s death and the contents of his report. Lopez says that the description of Rainey’s body on the front page of his report was what he was told by prison staffers. In his testimony, he added that he saw “what appeared to be burns,” but when asked if what he observed could have been “skin slippage,” Lopez says, “it could have been.”

“The amount of slippage, about 30%, is not inconsistent with the photos,” Griffith added. He also said that the slippage did not begin until Rainey’s “skin was touched in efforts to provide medical assistance” and that three prison nurses noted that Rainey’s skin appeared to be intact while he was still on the floor of the shower. Initially, Griffith explained that skin was displaced when Rainey was picked up and carried to the stretcher. Then more skin was displaced on his chest and back while CPR was performed for about 45 minutes.

Regarding nurse Wilson’s report about a nearly 105 degree temperature measured from Rainey’s ear, Griffith referred to Wilson’s sworn testimony, which he also provided to HuffPost, in which she does not mention the ear temperature reading. Instead, she says she tried to take Rainey’s temperature with a digital thermometer under his arm and rectally but both attempts resulted in an “error” readout on the thermometer.

Regarding Rainey’s body temperature at death, Griffith said “there definitely was an elevated body temperature.” But attempting to explain that temperature, “in the absence of burns, is one of the reasons the case evaluation was prolonged.”

Griffith said his office ruled out the water causing Rainey’s raised body temperature “because of the medical evidence and witnesses.”

Lew, responding to Braden’s remarks that Rainey’s body temperature was likely higher than normal when he died, told HuffPost she doesn’t disagree with his point. On his remarks on Rainey’s cause of death not making sense, Lew said, “Dr. Baden is an expert. Experts are allowed to give their opinions.” Responding to Baden’s remarks on skin slippage, she said simply, “It is Dr. Baden’s opinion.”

The Miami-Dade Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Milton Grimes, attorney for the Rainey family, said he could not comment specifically on the documents and photos reviewed by HuffPost but did say he has seen inconsistencies in the report when compared against other materials.

“I can say that a lot of statements in the report are inaccurate based on the discovery we have received. I am confused and troubled by what I’ve seen,” Grimes said and added that there are “important, pertinent and relevant facts” that were left out of the prosecutor’s memo.

“At a minimum, based on the totality of information that I have seen,” Grimes said, “there was culpable negligence in the death of Darren Rainey.”

In 2016, Grimes filed a lawsuit on behalf of Rainey’s family against the Florida Department of Corrections over the death, which is pending.

In May 2016, The New Yorker published an article written by Eyal Press about the experiences of Harriet Krzykowski, a former counselor at Dade Correctional Institution who says she faced retaliation from prison staff when she raised questions about alleged inmate abuse in the facility. She told the magazine the water from the faucet that fed into the shower where Rainey died was so hot that she sometimes used it to cook ramen noodles.

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Welcome To The Private Evangelical School Of Betsy DeVos' Dreams

It takes more than just a solid resume and stellar references to get hired at The Potter’s House, a school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The job application also requires prospective teachers to sign and accept a statement of faith.

“We believe that the world was perfect at creation, but sin intervened, severing all people’s perfect relationship with God and bringing consequences on every object and institution within the creation,” the statement reads, in part.  

The Potter’s House is a private school that is “evangelical in nature” and reportedly teaches creationism alongside evolution. It’s also the type of school that Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, apparently believes can level the playing field in educational inequality. The nondenominational Potter’s House makes a special effort to serve students of all races and income levels

DeVos has been deeply involved with The Potter’s House for years ― as a donor, volunteer and board member. She has mentioned the school by name in speeches and interviews, saying schools like The Potter’s House have given “kids the chance to succeed and thrive” and that the institution inspired her to advocate for education-related causes. 

Early signs indicate that DeVos will help make it easier for kids to attend similar private, religious schools. President Donald Trump’s budget proposal sets aside $250 million for a “new private school choice program” ― something DeVos said in a statement would place “power in the hands of parents and families to choose schools that are best for their children.”

Critics of the education secretary say they fear her commitment to religious education will come at the expense of traditional public schools and eventually recede the separation between church and state. A closer look at The Potter’s House may not alleviate these concerns.  

As far as I know going back, they presented the creation story.
Reggie Smith, father of The Potter’s House students

The school, which serves students in pre-K through 12th grade, centers its instructions and culture around Jesus Christ and God. 

“Since God is the center of reality, the Bible will be taught as having significance in all areas of life,” reads a philosophy statement agreement” that parents of students are required to sign. The school’s handbook says all students must take Bible classes, attend morning prayers and follow a strict dress code.

Science instructors teach both creationism and evolution, according to two parents of children who are currently attending or have attended the school.

As far as I know going back, they presented the creation story, but also talked about how evolution was another theory in how people thought about the world and how they thought the world was created,” said Reggie Smith, a pastor whose three daughters previously attended the school. “It was pretty balanced to me, even though they were coming from a Christian perspective.”

Some nonacademic classes are taught by teachers from the nearby Grand Rapids Public Schools district, according to Mary Bouwense, president of the Grand Rapids Education Association. But instructors who want to work directly for the school must prove their commitment to Christianity, both by signing the statement of faith and by answering application questions such as: “Which Christian disciplines do you consider especially important for a follower of Jesus in today’s culture?”

Such emphasis on religion is not unusual for a Christian school with evangelical roots. What is notable is the strong connection that a sitting education secretary, who is tasked with shaping policy to improve the nation’s public schools, has to such an institution.

The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation donated over $2 million to the school between 2001 and 2013, according to tax filings. And DeVos herself was a member of the school’s advisory board from 1994 to 2016, according to her website.

The school’s leadership team has involved a number of other conservative heavy-hitters, including J.C. Huizenga, who is listed on the school’s website as a foundation board member. Huizenga founded a for-profit charter school chain, and was included in the 2014 membership directory for the Council for National Policy ― which the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as a secretive group “where mainstream conservatives and extremists mix.” White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway have also been involved with the group.

The Council for National Policy produced a document earlier this year in which it called on DeVos to restore religious education and implement Bible classes in public schools, according to The Washington Post. DeVos reportedly did not receive the document and therefore would not comment on it.

The Potter’s House, which is located in an area where many Latino families live, is more racially and socioeconomically diverse than many private schools. Tuition rates are determined by a formula based on a family’s income, making it affordable to many low-income families. Eighty percent of students in 2013 received some degree of scholarship money, according to a report the school submitted to AdvancED, a nonprofit that accredits schools. 

It’s an anomaly in an area where private schools tend to attract white, upper middle-class families, said Sarah Boonstra, who has two daughters attending the school. The school’s commitment to diversity and social justice is partly what motivated her to send her children there, she said. 

And despite its Christian-centric classes, The Potter’s House doesn’t pressure students or parents to participate in any specific faith-based activities outside school hours, Boonstra said. The school also doesn’t just cater to Republican families, she added, noting that Gary Johnson won a mock election among eighth-graders last year. 

I want people to know there are a variety of parents who choose to do this,” said Boonstra, a former lawyer who now nannies for a local family. “When you’re in an area like Grand Rapids, which can be pretty white especially in some of the Christian areas, it was important that my kids be exposed to a broader cross-section of society.”

The school’s superintendent, John Booy, has said in various interviews with Michigan-based news outlets that he intentionally designed the school to promote this type of diversity. Booy did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

However, Booy has previously praised DeVos’ involvement with the school, as well as her commitment to children and education.  

“She’s always thinking about what is the best way to educate kids in the 21st century, and are we locked into models that have perhaps become somewhat outdated?” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. 

Both Boonstra and Smith said they don’t know DeVos personally and are grateful for her involvement in the school. But they also said they strongly believe in the mission of public education.

“That is a concern, that public schools aren’t going to get enough attention in west Michigan. It may shift in one way. My hope is that would not be the case because I don’t think it’s either/or; I think it’s both/and,” Smith said. “My prayer is that Betsy will be working for both.”

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Trump's Defense Splurge Won't Trickle Down To Working Soldiers

So, that happened. This week, Neil Gorsuch made his Senate confirmation hearing debut as President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. And he came to D.C. with a long and concerning history of putting his finger on the scales of justice in favor of entrenched monopolies of money and power. What’s really at stake here is your money, and we’re joined by law professor Zephyr Teachout to explain what you stand to lose if Gorsuch is confirmed.

Meanwhile, Trump has promised to boost the military budget, bringing a considerable amount of your tax dollars into a Pentagon that already hardly wants for cash. But with all this money sluicing through the system, it might surprise you to learn how little of it makes it down to the grunts who do all the hard work, and whose lives are much more frequently on the line than Washington’s dizzying array of defense contractors. We’ll take a look at the working-class military, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wood.

Finally, we have a real cops-and-robbers caper to share with you today, but it’s not something out of “Law And Order.” Unless, of course, there’s a “Law And Order: Special Financial Victims Unit” that we’ve not heard of. It involves insider trading, the biggest hedge fund in the world, and a guy whose idea of fine art is a dead shark in a formaldehyde tank ― and you can read all about it in a new book called Black Edge: Insider Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street. Author Sheelah Kolhatkar is joining us to talk about it.

“So That Happened” is hosted by Jason Linkins, Zach Carter and Arthur Delaney and produced by Zach Young. Send us an email at sothathappened@huffingtonpost.com

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Environmentalists Vow To Fight Donald Trump's 'Dangerous,' 'Embarrassing' Climate Rollback

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Environmentalists and former White House officials on Monday slammed President Donald Trump’s impending executive order that would undue much of the work his predecessor has done to combat climate change.

Trump was due to sign the Energy Independence Executive Order on Tuesday, which will target former President Barack Obama’s signature Clean Power Plan and open up federal land to coal development. But environmentalists are not giving up without a fight and plan to protest the wide-ranging order that has been met with fierce criticism.

Gina McCarthy, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, called it a “dangerous,” order that flies “in the face of EPA’s mission.”

“They want us to travel back to when smokestacks damaged our health and polluted our air, instead of taking every opportunity to support clean jobs of the future,” McCarthy said in a statement. “This is not just dangerous; it’s embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and US leadership.”

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a noted climate change denier, said Tuesday’s order would “address the past administration’s effort to kill jobs throughout the country” ― a statement that couldn’t be more different from the agency’s stance just three months ago.

Janet McCabe, the former head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the agency “has an obligation to address carbon pollution” and challenged Pruitt’s recent assertion that carbon emissions were not the cause of climate change.

“Congress put the Clean Air Act in place to protect Americans from air pollution, and there is no doubt greenhouse gases are air pollution ― the science makes that crystal clear and the Supreme Court has confirmed it as a matter of law,” she said in a statement.

This Executive Order will undermine people’s health and the U.S. economy.

Environmentalists vowed to fight the effects of the rollback and planned a protest in Washington, D.C., for Tuesday evening. 

“Trump’s attack ignores reality ― not just the reality of the climate crisis, but the reality that the clean energy economy is rapidly growing in both red and blue states, creating jobs and safeguarding our air and water,” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said in a statement. “Trump can’t reverse our clean energy and climate progress with the stroke of a pen, and we’ll fight Trump in the courts, in the streets, and at the state and local level across America to protect the health of every community.”

World Resources Institute president Andrew Steer said the Trump administration was “taking a sledgehammer to U.S. climate action,” and with the signing of a pen, the president will “push the country backward.”

“Make no mistake: This Executive Order will undermine people’s health and the U.S. economy. It hands moral authority and global leadership over to others, leaving America behind,” Steer said in a statement.

Economists and energy executives have already casts doubts on the aim of the executive order and Trump’s plans to restore thousands of coal mining jobs.

“I really don’t know how far the coal industry can be brought back,” Robert Murray, the head of one of the countries largest coal mining companies, told The New York Times.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

How To Make Arabic Coffee, The Perfect Drink For Fans Of Cardamom

In response to the Muslim travel ban, one way for us to navigate these times is to educate ourselves ― to learn what we can about the cultures of the nations that are affected and the surrounding areas. After all, food is the distillation of community and culture to its most basic form. We hope you’ll cook along with us in support. 

If you’re tired of your daily coffee routine, let us make a suggestion: Give Arabic coffee a try. It’s strong, it’s free of sweeteners, and it’s beautifully fragrant thanks a heavy dose of cardamom. 

Here’s the first thing you need to know about Arabic coffee: there are many variations on how to make it, about as many as there are nations where it’s enjoyed ― such as Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. But coffee culture runs deep in this region, so there are some constants. And that’s what we’re going to talk about here.

First, Arabic coffee is not brewed through a filter ― it is boiled.

Nawal Nasrallah, author of the cookbook Delights from the Garden of Eden, explains that Arabic coffee is traditionally made in a special coffee pot called a dallah ― pictured above ― but it can also be made in a regular pot on the stove. (The dallah’s shape, with it’s wide base and narrow top, helps the coffee foam.)

To make the coffee, lightly roasted beans are ground into a powder and added straight to boiling water ― often times with cardamom, if the cardamom wasn’t already ground into the beans ― and left for roughly 10-15 minutes. After boiling, coffee is allowed to settle for a minute or two to allow the grounds to fall to the bottom of the pot. 

The coffee is served in small demitasse cups without handles called finjaan. Only up to a third of the small cup is filled, Marlene Matar explains in her book The Aleppo Cookbook. It is typical to have the cup refilled several times.

Second, Arabic coffee is traditionally served unsweetened.

Arabic coffee is meant to taste robust and bitter. It is often served alongside dates (or another sweet treat) to counter the bitterness. Although, it should be noted that these days sugar does sometimes make an appearance.  

Third, Arabic coffee is fragrant.

Spices play a big role in Arabic coffee. The most common spice used is cardamom. It is added in large quantities, writes Lamees Ibrahim in The Iraqi Cookbook. Cardamom is sometimes ground with the coffee beans and boiled along with the coffee. Alternatively, it is added to the coffee after a first boil, and then boiled again all together. Cloves, saffron (which gives it a golden color) and sometimes rosewater makes an appearance in Arabic coffee. These spices are reason alone to put down your triple venti half caf and try something new.

Watch how to make Arabic coffee in the video below.

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The Best Foods For Preventing Yourself From Getting Hangry

Hanger might be a relatively new word in our modern-day vocabulary, but it is a tale as old as time. You see, it’s not a result of our rushed, contemporary lifestyle ― it’s our body’s natural reaction to low blood sugar. 

But just because the hangry experience is old, that doesn’t mean it has to continue. There’s a solution, and it comes in the form of well-packed, thought-out snacks. The folks at Fix.com put together a list of 12 foods that’ll help you fight hanger ― along with more info on why we get hangry and the best ways to plan to avoid it.

Check it out:


Source: Fix.com Blog

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9 Dessert Recipes To Make With Your Leftover Easter Candy

Here’s the thing with leftover Easter candy: it makes for some really colorful desserts. We’re talking about recipes that are even more eye-popping than the cute recipes you bake up for the holiday itself.

Sure, you could just eat it straight from your stash, but if you’re willing to get the oven going, you could whip up some beautiful, candy-filled treats. From s’mores to brownies to cookies to candy bark, there are more ways to turn Easter candy into a fun treat than there are Easter candies to choose from.

We picked out our nine favorite recipes for you below. Be sure that your peeps (and all your other loot) live up to their full sugary potential.

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Freedom Caucus Considers Its Next Fight: Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON ― Weary from a weeks-long battle over the GOP health care bill, the House Freedom Caucus is regrouping, reassessing, looking at an upcoming spending bill and wondering whether they have another immediate fight in them.

Congress has just over a month before lawmakers have to pass a short-term funding bill to keep the government open, and there are a number of questions conservatives have to answer about that legislation. Will they block any continuing resolution that continues to fund Planned Parenthood? Will they stand strong on spending increases? How much additional money could they swallow, particularly if it’s not for defense?

An exhausted Mark Meadows, chairman of the roughly three-dozen-member group, emerged Monday night to pump the brakes on any talk of the Freedom Caucus taking a hard stance right now on the so-called continuing resolution to keep government agencies operating.

“Everybody’s pretty weary right now. I know I am,” Meadows (R-N.C.) said. “And so I think anytime that you’re weary, you’ve got to be careful about two things: One, making a poor decision, and the other is making a quick decision.”

He said the HFC would make a “very methodical decision” in the days and weeks to come on the continuing resolution (CR) and that Planned Parenthood funding would be one of the things conservatives look at. But he made it clear that he was still thinking about the health care bill.

“I’ve spent the last 48 hours probably reviewing this and analyzing a whole lot of different situations,” Meadows said.

The CR is so far from the Freedom Caucus’ mind at the moment that when The Huffington Post asked Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) where the caucus was at on including Planned Parenthood funding in the spending bill, his response was, “I still think we can get this done,” referring to the health care bill.

“We’re not talking about the CR right now,” Labrador said.

Asked whether there was a feeling that the Freedom Caucus maybe needed to let the spending bill go without another fight, Labrador went right back to health care. “We’re resolute to get this solved.”

But don’t mistake the Freedom Caucus’ continued focus on health care as a sign of weakness. Plenty of members reported that they weren’t “war weary.”

“I’m not war weary,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) reported. “You ever been shot at before?” (Perry, a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, flew 44 combat missions in Iraq.)

Other members reported that they, too, wouldn’t shy away from a fight, and they promised that personal worries and concerns that their caucus could become a scourge of the GOP wouldn’t factor into their legislative decisions.

“I don’t get concerned,” Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) said. “That’s a feeling. Calvinists have rationality.”

And while other members may not share Brat’s religion, they took the same cool-headed approach.

“Hopefully you know me well enough to know that I do things almost exclusively on a policy basis, what I believe is best for America,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told HuffPost on Monday night. “And it makes no difference to me who the sponsor of a bill is, who the opponents to a bill may be, or which groups may or may not be behind it.”

The Freedom Caucus, like Congress itself, has a long list of hurdles for the remainder of the year. Former chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) laid out a busy schedule Monday night of dealing with the CR, then the budget, then tax reform, then individual appropriations bills, then the infrastructure bill, then another spending bill, and then the debt ceiling.

But Jordan also mentioned that he could see a border and defense supplemental becoming part of the CR, raising the possibility that the Freedom Caucus will draw that as their hard line, potentially threatening a government shutdown over Democratic objections about funding a border wall but perhaps winning over one newfound critic: President Donald Trump.

As much as the conservative caucus pretends all is well with its group, it is taking some heat from Trump and GOP leadership. Over the weekend, one of its most moderate members, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), quit the caucus, citing a “mob mentality” that had become destructive toward legislating.

Meadows poured on the praise for Poe on Monday night, but he said the strength of any group is in its ability to stick together. “I wouldn’t classify that as a mob,” Meadows said.

But true to their pugnacious style, some members couldn’t help taking a slight dig at Poe and a larger but more amenable conservative group, the Republican Study Committee.

When Labrador was asked about the Freedom Caucus losing members, Labrador made it clear he looks down upon members who don’t have the fight in them.
“If you don’t want to do the hard work of legislating and taking a position, that’s why we have the RSC,” he said.

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The Morning After: Tuesday, March 28th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Welcome to Tuesday, and we’re letting an AI influence our tweets, see cell division that looks like the intro to an X-Men movie, and hear about Andy Rubin’s new smartphone. In case you didn’t know, he was the gu…