Great White Shark Beaches At Santa Cruz

A 10-foot-long great white shark beached in the shallows of the Santa Cruz shore in California where some brave ocean lovers tried to pull it back into the water — without success.

The giant fish seemed confused about direction as it thrashed close to shore during rough surf Friday evening, at one point rolling over on its back. When some good Samaritans hauled it back into deeper water — twice — it swam “aimlessly” and ended up beached again, said a local shark expert.

The big fish likely didn’t survive. It was seen later apparently battered and bloodied by the waves before it vanished.

Pelagic Research Shark Foundation Executive Director Sean Van Sommeran told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that 13-foot waves were hurting the animal’s chances to head back to sea.

 “We were able to get the shark uprighted and in the water. It just kind of turned around. It was aimless,” Van Sommeran told KSBW.

Would-be rescuers believed the shark was sick or injured.

As many as 50 bystanders gathered one point as people came to see the shark— and some took photos of it until police arrived with a bullhorn to warn them away.

Wildlife officials will attempt to recover a carcass should it wash up for examination.

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Bird Slams Into Man's Face In Bloody Roller Coaster Accident

Roller coasters are designed for thrill seekers, but one man got more than he bargained for at the newly opened Ferrari Land in Barcelona, Spain.

A man and his friend went for a ride on Red Force, which is being touted as Europe’s fastest roller coaster, on Friday and literally crashed into an unfortunate surprise.

While riding the 112 mph coaster, a bird slammed into the man’s face, leaving behind a bloody mess. Shocked by the impact, the man felt his face until he found a bird pushed up against his neck thanks to the ride’s extreme acceleration. 

He tossed the bird aside and, with blood smeared across his face, appeared to tell his friend what just happened. Moments after the encounter, the man seemed to accept his ― and the bird’s ― fate and rose his hand for another drop.

It’s unclear if the man suffered any significant injuries, but, at the very least, he appeared to be thrilled the last few seconds in the video.

A similar accident took place in 2012 when a 12-year-old boy was hit by a bird while riding a roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. That boy was taken to a hospital and suffered minor injuries to his face and neck.

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U.S. Navy Strike Group Will Move Toward Korea, Official Says

WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) – A U.S. Navy strike group will be moving toward the western Pacific Ocean near the Korean peninsula, a U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday, as concerns grow about North Korea’s advancing weapons program.

Earlier this month North Korea tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile which only traveled a fraction of its range.

The strike group, called Carl Vinson, includes an aircraft carrier and will make its way from Singapore toward the Korean peninsula, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity.

“We feel the increased presence is necessary,” the official said, citing North Korea’s worrisome behavior.

This year North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un, have repeatedly indicated an intercontinental ballistic missile test or something similar could be coming, possibly as soon as April 15, the 105th birthday of North Korea’s founding president and celebrated annually as “the Day of the Sun.”

Earlier this week U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Florida, where Trump pressed his counterpart to do more to curb North Korea’s nuclear program.

Trump’s national security aides have completed a review of U.S. options to try to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. These include economic and military measures but lean more toward sanctions and increased pressure on Beijing to rein in its reclusive neighbor.

Although the option of pre-emptive military strikes on North Korea is not off the table, the review prioritizes less-risky steps and de-emphasizes direct military action.

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Top Trump Aides Said To 'Bury The Hatchet' After Press Reports Of Feud

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Top White House aides Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met and agreed to “bury the hatchet” over their differences, a senior administration official said on Saturday, in a bid to stop infighting that has distracted from President Donald Trump’s message.

Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, and Kushner, an influential adviser and Trump’s son-in-law, met on Friday at the request of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus who told them that if they have any policy differences, they should air them internally, the official said.

The development at the president’s Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, came at the end of what has been a relatively smooth week for Trump.

Trump ordered airstrikes against Syrian targets that drew praise in many parts of the world and staged an error-free summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, complete with his wife, Melania, wearing a red dress to symbolize the main color of the Chinese flag.

Priebus’ message to Bannon and Kushner was to “stop with the palace intrigue” and focus on the president’s agenda, the official told Reuters.

Both aides left having agreed that it was time to “bury the hatchet and move forward,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Four former advisers to the president said Trump is accustomed to chaos in his decades-long career as a real estate developer but that even he has grown weary of the infighting.

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (L) and senior advisor Jared Kushner speak after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (L) and senior advisor Jared Kushner speak after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
”He’s got a long fuse for that kind of thing,” said one former adviser. “I imagine he has gotten tired of this.”

The White House dismissed persistent talk that Trump might be on the verge of a staff shakeup. “The only thing we are shaking up is the way Washington operates as we push the president’s aggressive agenda forward,” spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.

The Trump White House has been a hotbed of palace intrigue since he took office on Jan. 20. But the drama has intensified after the failed effort to get healthcare legislation approved by the House of Representatives and the rocky rollout of an executive order attempting to temporarily ban citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States.

Bannon, former chief of the conservative news organization Breitbart News, has been at odds with Kushner and Gary Cohn, the head of the White House National Economic Council, an administration official and the four former advisers said.

The former Trump advisers said Kushner, husband of Trump daughter Ivanka Trump, is trying to tug the president into a more mainstream position, while Bannon is trying to keep aflame the nationalist fervor that carried Trump to his unexpected election victory on Nov. 8.

Bannon is getting some of the blame for the administration’s early stumbles because, one former adviser said, “The president demands results.”In what was viewed as a sign of Bannon’s declining influence, he was removed from his seat on the National Security Council this week. Administration officials said this was done at the urging of national security adviser H.R. McMaster, with whom Bannon had clashed.

Some of the former Trump advisers said Priebus is at fault for not gaining control of the feuding and said Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive, would be a candidate to replace him.

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VIDEOFeuding Trump aides meet and agree to end ‘palace intrigue’: source
Priebus is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and bucked many in his party by putting the weight of the RNC behind Trump when it was clear he would be the party’s presidential nominee.

“”Reince is chief of staff,” said a source familiar with the issue. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Republican strategist Charlie Black, who has known Trump for 30 years, said he did not think a shakeup was imminent and that Trump’s White House reflects his traditional approach to running his business.

“He’s always had a spokes-to-the-wheel management style,” said Black. “He wants people with differing views among the spokes.”

Bill Daley, a former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama, who got pushed out in a shakeup himself after roughly a year into the job, said it appears that inside the Trump White House there’s a struggle for “the soul and brain of the president.”

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New Mexico Law Bans Schools From 'Lunch Shaming' Hungry Kids

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New Mexico is the first state in the United States to make it expressly illegal to single out or humiliate a child who cannot pay for his or her lunch at school.

Gov. Susana Martinez (R) signed The Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights into law on Thursday, The New York Times reports. The bill is aimed at ending the practice of “lunch shaming.” It also outlines procedures for schools to collect debts and helps families in signing up for federal free or reduced-price meal assistance.

Read The New York Times’ full report here.

Advocates for children say tactics that stigmatize students with lunch debts are disturbingly common. This includes throwing kids’ lunches away if they can’t pay; making students clean the cafeteria; or requiring that they wear stickers, stamps or wrist bands that indicate they can’t pay.

“Children whose parents or caregivers owe money for school lunch will no longer have to miss meals or face public embarrassment in front of their peers,” Jennifer Ramo of New Mexico Appleseed, a group that works to fight poverty, said in a March statement supporting the bill. “No child should be forced to wipe down cafeteria tables or throw away a meal because of a debt.”

In Pennsylvania, a cafeteria worker says she was ordered to throw away a hot lunch that she had already served to a first grader and give him a plain cheese sandwich instead (though the school denied her account of what happened.) In Utah, dozens of elementary school children had to watch their lunches thrown away because they owed money — but cafeteria staff couldn’t check the kids’ balances until after they had served them. Those kids then got milk and fruit as a replacement.

And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a policy to give kids without lunch money cold cheese sandwiches and fruit partially backfired as some families began to see the sandwiches as punishment for being poor. Families whose received such a meal included those who were in the process of applying for free or reduced-price federal lunch assistance, The Denver Post reported in 2009.

The Times points out that schools feel pressure to collect debts — which can run up to millions of dollars in some districts – because schools can’t use federal funds to offset the costs, meaning they have to find the money elsewhere. But supporters of the bill believe it’s crucial to conduct any debt collection with as little shame for the children involved as possible.

Even without added stigma, some students already feel ashamed of being hungry. Oregon teacher Gibson Howton, whose Facebook post about providing snacks to her students went viral last month, said that’s why she freely offers food to kids in her classroom.

“Feeling hungry feels scary,” she told HuffPost in March. “If satisfying their stomach makes them feel less afraid, less anxious, more cared for … everything else becomes easier.”

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