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Orca bullying

Kenya's Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has halted construction of the U.S.-backed Ebola quarantine facility at Laikipia Air Base after being found in contempt of court for allowing work to continue despite a court order.

Duale appeared before the High Court in Nairobi on Tuesday and said he directed "the immediate and complete cessation of any intended construction, site preparations or related activities" concerning the facilitly.

It was never the intention of the ministry or myself as the Cabinet Secretary to disregard, undermine, or act in defiance of the orders," he said.

Duale also told the court he would be "the last person to disregard a court order" and "the last person to violate any constitutional order given by any court."

The court accepted Duale's apology and discharged him with a warning, saying that he would face sentencing if there was any indication he disobeyed its orders again. The injunction stopping construction was extended until a hearing on July 23.

Today was an important moment for justice in Kenya," Nora Mbagathi, executive director of Kenya's Katiba Institute, an organization formed to support the country's constitution that challenged the U.S. plan, told ABC News in a WhatsApp message.

"By appearing in court and confirming that construction of the quarantine facility has been halted, Duale has affirmed the government's recognition that they are not above the Constitution," the message continued. "His apology to the Court and the people of Kenya is an important moment not just for our courts but for our democracy and rule of law."

Bird flu has killed thousands of southern elephant seal pups on remote Antarctic islands belonging to Australia, new research has shown.

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Heard and McDonald Islands, about 4,000 km (2,485 miles) south-west of Australia, are home to over one million breeding seabirds and seals.

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Scientists, using data from last October and this January, estimate about 13,000 baby seals from a group of 17,000 on Heard Island were killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu since last August, more than 75% of the entire group. They also found higher than expected deaths in penguin populations.

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Australia is the only continent with no cases of the H5N1 strain which has spread among birds worldwide and affected some mammals.

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This latest research, published in the scientific journal BioRxiv and yet to be peer reviewed, was based on drone surveys and ground visits to the hard-to-reach islands where scientists collected samples from nine species.

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Of those, six species tested positive for the H5N1 strain: the southern elephant seal, king and gentoo penguins, the Antarctic fur seal and the South George diving petrel.

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Late last year, scientists were alerted to the possible impact of bird flu on the islands when a research voyage found hundreds of dead baby seals.

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More research conducted this January confirmed bird flu had mainly hit southern elephant seal pup populations with a smaller impact on king and gentoo penguins.

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The report estimates that 13,359 baby seals from a population of 17,364 on Heard Island died, more that 75% of the entire group. The mortality rate may be an underestimate as pups were still dying at the time of the final surveys, researchers said. In one area 97% of baby seals had died.

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Elsewhere, data showed several hundred adult king penguins died, which was a low proportion of the population but above normal levels.

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"These observations of H5 bird flu at Heard Island and McDonald Island are the first detection in an Australian external territory and show the continued eastward movement of the virus around the sub-Antarctic," lead author wildlife biologist Dr Julie McInnes said.

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"Our results show a similar pattern to other sub-Antarctic islands, such as South Georgia, where elephant seals have been hardest hit."

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The report also found no unusual deaths among the albatross population or two endemic species, the Heard Island shad and the black-faced sheathbill.

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Environment Minister Murray Watt said the seal deaths were "sobering" and showed Australia must not be complacent in preparing for the strain possibly making it to the mainland.

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"We must be realistic about the likelihood of an incursion here, and plan accordingly."

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Scientists believe bird flu was likely introduced to the islands last August from migrating birds from the French-owned Crozet Islands, about 1,800 km away.

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The Australian Antarctic Program, a partnership between government and research institutions, will continue to monitor for signs of bird flu in its territories.

https://www.wfaa.com/mobile/article/news/state/texas-news/texas-flood/state-investigators-issue-final-camp-mystic-report-detailing-cascading-failures-during-july-4-flood/287-2bc4ea4f-580d-48b4-812b-6b7c4fad19de

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Camp Mystic did not have state-required written emergency plans or adequate evacuation measures that could have prevented the deaths of 25 campers and two counselors in last year’s July 4 flood, state-appointed investigators told the state lawmakers in their final report released on Thursday.

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Casey Garrett and Michael Massengale, hired by the Texas Legislature to conduct a probe of the flood response, said cascading failures led to the tragedy, from communication lapses between state and local authorities to lackluster instructions to counselors about how to safely evacuate in the event of a flood beyond haphazard planning by the camp’s director, Richard Eastland, who also died in the flood while trying to rescue campers.

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“And when disaster struck, and it did strike on July 4 of last year, it may as well have been no plan at all,” Massengale said.

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In a 115-page report, the findings pieced together more accounts of the events that played out at the century-old camp, including new interviews with surviving campers and state and local officials.

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A joint committee of state representatives and senators said the Legislature addressed all but one of the deficiencies outlined in the investigators’ report by passing a series of laws last year. They promised to address the remaining problem — the inability of camp counselors to reach the camp’s owners during the flood — in the next legislative session that begins in January.

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“We do not recall being aware of this deficiency at the time we developed and passed (the laws), and we are thankful this process revealed it to us,” a letter attached to the report said.

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Camp Mystic did not have written emergency plans that complied with the state’s requirements. Investigators said camp leadership didn’t have state-approved emergency plans posted in each cabin for counselors and campers, other than instructions to shelter in place. “Staff members and counselors were not assigned any responsibilities in the event of that kind of an evacuation. This was a fatal error,” Massengale said.Camp Mystic did not adequately prepare for the storm: The camp had received weather alerts warning of a storm on July 3, investigators said. Camp Mystic “had the means to inform itself and to appropriately protect its campers from severe weather,” Massengale said. “Our investigation showed that apart from what Dick Eastland was likely doing, nobody else at the camp was watching that night.”

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Camp Mystic did not evacuate in advance of the storm, despite ample opportunity to do so: At 1:14 a.m., investigators said, the National Weather Service sent a flash flood warning. Eastland called his son, Edward, for help shortly after 3 a.m., investigators said. In that time, investigators said the campers could have been instructed to evacuate to higher ground.

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Camp leadership confiscated counselors’ cellphones while on site, the report found, and did not provide them with replacement equipment, such as a radio or handheld transmitter that they could have used in an emergency.The camp normally employed three counselors per cabin but reduced the number to two in certain cabins. A senior counselor expressed to the camp’s leadership that some of the younger teenaged staff struggled to keep up with their cabins and needed assistance. The report said that having older, more experienced counselors at the camp could have helped prevent more deaths.The reunification efforts and incident management after the storm were chaotic, which led to campers’ parents being “unnecessarily traumatized” by incomplete and conflicting information as they waited to learn whether their children survived.

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Top law enforcement officials in Western Europe said Rio's death is part of a growing and terrifying trend of kids being recruited and groomed online by criminal gangs to commit heinous acts.

"It's like a cheap build-your-own contract killer scheme," Catherine De Bolle, who until last month was executive director of Europol, the European Union's police agency, told ABC News.

And the problem of violence as a service, she said, is occurring on an "industrial scale."

"Now, with the usage of artificial intelligence, with the new technology, and with the fact that so many youngsters are on digital platforms, it's heaven for criminal networks," De Bolle said. "This is really worrying us."

Officials say it is simply a computer-age twist on how criminal organizations find unsuspecting teens to do their dirty work: they lurk on gaming sites and messaging apps, seeking to recruit kids as young as 13. The result is child foot soldiers hired as hitmen, becoming both the perpetrators of crime and the victims of criminals.

The trend so concerned European law enforcement that Europol formed a working group last year to combat the problem. Called the Grimm Task Force -- named for the Brothers Grimm's dark and dangerous, cautionary fairytales -- it specifically targets violence as a service and the recruitment of young perpetrators into serious, organized crime.

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Canada's food inspection agency has announced a temporary ban on livestock from the US state of Texas after flesh-eating screwworms were discovered in calves this week.

Cows and horses that were in Texas anytime within 21 days before crossing the border into Canada would not be accepted into the country, an agency news release said.

The announcement comes after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said the parasite had been found in a second calf in Texas - the leading US beef and cattle producer. Texas Gov Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster on Friday over the "imminent threat" the outbreak posed.

"This is likely to spread over the course of the summer," Abbott told reporters on Friday.