Underground gas explosions kill at least 24 in southwestern Taiwanese port

Tossed vehicles line a destroyed street near flames from multiple explosions from an underground gas leak in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, early Friday.

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — At least 24 people were killed and 271 others injured when several underground gas explosions ripped through Taiwan’s second-largest city overnight, hurling concrete through the air and blasting long trenches in the streets, authorities said Friday.

The series of explosions about midnight Thursday and early Friday struck a district where several petrochemical companies operate pipelines alongside the sewer system in Kaohsiung, a southwestern port with 2.8 million people.

The fires were believed caused by a leak of propene, a petrochemical material not intended for public use, but the source of the gas was not immediately clear, officials said.

Video from the TVBS broadcaster showed residents searching for victims in shattered storefronts and rescuers pulling injured people from the rubble and placing them on stretchers while passersby helped other victims on a sidewalk. Broadcaster ETTV showed rows of large fires sending smoke into the night sky.

Four firefighters were among the 24 dead, the National Fire Agency said. The firefighters had been at the scene investigating reports of a gas leak when the explosions occurred.

At least five blasts shook the city, Taiwan’s Premier Jiang Yi-huah said.

Chang Jia-juch, the director of the Central Disaster Emergency Operation Centre, said the leaking gas was most likely to be propene, meaning that the resulting fires could not be extinguished by water. He said emergency workers would have to wait until the gas burns off.

The source of the leak was unknown. Chang said, however, that propene was not for public use, and that it was a petrochemical material.

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu said several petrochemical companies have pipelines built along the sewage system in Chian-Chen district, which has both factories and residential buildings.

“Our priority is to save people now. We ask citizens living along the pipelines to evacuate,” Chen said.

Power was cut off in the area, making it difficult for firefighters to search for others who might be buried in rubble.

The fire department received reports from residents of gas leakage at about 8:45 p.m. and that explosions started around midnight.

Closed-circuit television showed an explosion rippling through the floor of a motorcycle parking area, hurling concrete and other debris through the air. Mobile phone video captured the sound of an explosion as flames leapt at least nine metres into the air.

One of the explosions left a large trench running down the centre of a road, edged with piles of concrete slabs torn apart by the force of the blast. Several emergency vehicles were tossed upside down. The force of the initial blast also felled trees lining the street.

‘World freedom fighter’ who wouldn’t recant Christian faith while facing death arrives in U.S.

Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim of Sudan, with her daughter Maya in her arms, in his Santa Marta residence, at the Vatican on July 24. Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence, which was later overturned, left Europe on Thursday, , for the U.S. Photo: (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, File)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — A Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence arrived Thursday in the United States, where she was welcomed first by the mayor of Philadelphia as a “world freedom fighter” and later by cheering supporters waving American flags in New Hampshire.

Meriam Ibrahim flew from Rome to Philadelphia with her husband and two children, en route to Manchester, where her husband has family and where they will make their new home. Her husband, Daniel Wani, his face streaked with tears, thanked New Hampshire’s Sudanese community on his family’s behalf and said he appreciated the outpouring of support.

Earlier in Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter said people will remember Ibrahim along “with others who stood up so we could be free.” He compared her with Rosa Parks, who became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, touching off a bus boycott.

Nutter said it was fitting Ibrahim landed first in Philadelphia, a city founded as a place open to all faiths. He gave her a small replica of the Liberty Bell, a symbol of American independence, which he said she understood.

“Meriam Ibrahim is a world freedom fighter,” he said.

Ibrahim had been sentenced to death over charges of apostasy, the abandonment of a religion. Her father was Muslim, and her mother was an Orthodox Christian. She married Wani, a Christian from southern Sudan, in 2011. Muslim women in Sudan are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims. By law, children must follow their fathers’ religions.

Sudan initially blocked Ibrahim from leaving the country even after its highest court overturned her death sentence in June. The family took refuge at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum.

Manchester, a city of 110,000 residents about 50 miles north of Boston, is northern New England’s largest city and has been a magnet for immigrants and refugees for decades. There are about 500 Sudanese living in the city, which is just north of the Massachusetts state line.

Ibrahim’s husband, who previously lived in New Hampshire, had been granted U.S. citizenship when he fled to the United States as a child to escape civil war, but he later returned and was a citizen of South Sudan.

The family was met at the Manchester airport by Gabriel Wani, Ibrahim’s brother-in-law, and dozens of supporters holding balloons, signs and flags. The crowd cheered as they stopped in the terminal, and several women reached out to hug Ibrahim.

“We’re just going to go and bring them home,” Gabriel Wani said. “They want to come home, and they want to rest.”

Monyroor Teng, pastor of the Sudanese Evangelical Covenant Church in Manchester, said Ibrahim’s release gives him hope.

“People are really happy to receive them when they come home,” he said. “It’s a miracle to me. I didn’t think that something like this would happen because, in Sudan, when something happens like that, it’s unreal. It happens to so many people. Maybe, who knows, I’m praying for those (other) ladies who are in jail and those who have died.”

The Rev. William Devlin, a New York pastor who had helped the family, said Ibrahim expressed some sadness when he talked to her Wednesday.

“She is leaving everything she knows behind,” he said.

US, UN announce Israel, Hamas agree to 72-hour Gaza cease-fire

A general view shows the collapsed minaret of a destroyed mosque in Gaza City, on July 30 2014 after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike. Israeli bombardments killed "dozens" of Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 16 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israel-Hamas conflict. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

By Lara Jakes

NEW DELHI — Israel and Hamas have agreed to a humanitarian cease-fire to start Friday morning for 72 hours, the United States and United Nations announced Thursday.

In a statement released in New Delhi where Secretary of State John Kerry is travelling, the U.S. and U.N. said they had gotten assurances that all parties to the conflict in Gaza had agreed to an unconditional cease-fire during which there would be negotiations on a more durable truce in the three-week-old fighting.

“This humanitarian cease-fire will commence at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. It will last for a period of 72 hours unless extended. During this time the forces on the ground will remain in place,” the statement said.

“We urge all parties to act with restraint until this humanitarian cease-fire begins, and to fully abide by their commitments during the cease-fire.”

The statement said the cease-fire was critical to give civilians a much-needed reprieve from violence. During this period, civilians in Gaza will receive humanitarian relief and have time to bury the dead, take care of the injured and restock food supplies.

The time also will be used to repair water and energy infrastructure.

Truck crash closes Burlington Skyway bridge

The accident is expected to take hours to be cleaned up . Photo: Twitter/@StashMom

All lanes on the QEW leading to Toronto on the Burlington Skyway are closed after a truck hit the bridge’s scaffolding earlier today.

Police, fire and the Ministry of Transportation are all responding to the collision, according to the OPP. There are minor injuries. The province is in the process of investing in a $20 million construction project on the Skyway which is expected to be finished by fall of 2016.

Go Transit has tweeted from their official Twitter account that passengers should expect delays due to the crash.

Scaffolding fell onto the bridge after the truck hit it.

Follow @Patrick_ORourke.

Give patients easy access to health records, says Canadian Medical Association Journal

In this July 2013 file photo, doctors in Vancouver use high-tech programs and electronic medical records to help patients monitor their own health. ***Trax #00022597A Photo: Mark van Manen/Postmedia News

Canada’s premier medical journal says it’s time patients had easy access to something they normally aren’t invited to see: the notes their doctors write about them.

In an era of electronic health records and password-protected portals, patients should be able to access their medical records as easily as they do online banking, argues an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Patients already have the right to see their medical records, including their doctors’ notes. But those legal rights come with “hoops and speed bumps,” the editorial says, including lengthy delays (up to 90 days in some parts of the country) and copying fees.

“Modern information technology and Internet capability offer the potential for useful transparency that has been shown to benefit patients and the health care system,” writes CMAJ deputy editor Dr. Kirsten Patrick.

“It is no longer appropriate for physicians to want to conceal their version of a patient’s story from the patient,” Patrick writes. “Proper shared decision-making depends on a story on which both agree.”

What’s more, she said, “patients Really Like It.”

In the U.S. more than three million Americans now have electronic access to what their doctor’s write in their medical records through a national initiative known as OpenNotes.

The movement began with a one-year pilot study in 2010, when more than 100 doctors working at three large family medicine practices in three states agreed to invite more than 20,000 of their patients to read their notes securely online. Patients received emails when a doctor’s note was signed and posted to their portal.

The results were “striking,” according to the researchers: patients felt more in control of their care, had a better understanding of their medical issues and were more likely to take medications as prescribed. They were also able to share their notes with their caregivers.

At the end of the year, virtually all patients surveyed wanted “open notes” to continue and none of the doctors chose to opt out.

Few patients said reading the notes made them feel worried, confused or offended, as some doctors feared it would, said Jan Walker, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center.

Patients rarely requested doctors change their record and while many MDs worried they would have to spend more time  “editing” or writing notes, knowing their patients might read them, or face a barrage of follow-up questions and emails from patients, most doctors reported little or no impact on their workloads.

Walker said opening doctors’ notes to patients could improve patient safety by allowing people to catch mistakes in their records.

In the U.K., the government has pledged to have open notes starting in 2015.

For patients, “What’s not to like?” said Patrick, of the CMAJ. “It’s your most valuable information — your health information — and people don’t like to be kept in the dark,” she said. Patients like transparency, she said. “They like to see what their doctors write about them.”

Some doctors worry that, if patients could read what they write about them, would they misinterpret?

Notes can be candid, describing a patient as “obese,” “anxious” or “malingering,” meaning willfully pretending to be sick when they aren’t.

“There’s this classic example where a patient got very upset because a doctor wrote in his notes ‘SOB’, which is shorthand for shortness of breath,” Patrick said. The patient took it an entirely different way.

“We need to be able to write notes in a way that can be understood” and patients need to be allowed to question what’s in their record if it’s inaccurate, she said.

In Canada, “all of these notes belong to the patient, so there should be no question about their access to them,” said Sholom Glouberman, president of Patients Canada.

“But there are all kinds of barriers put in place. We’re very much against that. We think that patients should have access to their notes and should be able to contribute to their notes as well.”

Toronto’s Sunnybrook Heath Sciences Centre offers a service known as MyChart, which offers patients online access to their hospital records, clinic visit notes, test results and other information. The program has been in operation since 2006.

“We really have given (patients) the ability now to stay connected to information that could be critical,” said Sarina Cheng, director of information services, e-health strategies and health records at Sunnybrook.

“The other big part of this that makes us unique is the power that the patients are feeling. They’ve just never had this before,” said Cheng.

skirkey(at)postmedia.com

Supreme Court narrows scope of allowable evidence from ‘Mr. Big’ police stings

Nelson Lloyd Hart was the target of a Mr. Big sting following the drowning deaths of his twin daughters. Photo: Tara Brautigam/Canadian Press file photo

Mr. Big stings — the controversial undercover police operations designed to draw confessions from suspects — run the risk of becoming abusive and producing unreliable evidence, Canada’s top court ruled Thursday, as it laid out new rules to protect those targeted by them.

While the technique has proven valuable and resulted in hundreds of convictions, confessions can sometimes come from “powerful inducements” and “veiled threats,” the Supreme Court of Canada said in its long-awaited decision.

Trial judges must consider the circumstances in which the confession was made, including the extent of inducements offered and the presence of threats, as well as the sophistication and mental health of the accused, the top court said.

Trial judges must also examine the confession for “markers of reliability,” including the level of detail and whether the accused has provided details of the crime that have not been made public.

“Wrongful convictions are a blight on our justice system.  We must take reasonable steps to prevent them before they occur,” Justice Michael Moldaver wrote for the majority.

In a Mr. Big operation, officers posing as members of a criminal organization befriend the suspect — typically a murder suspect — and then gain the suspect’s trust with money, booze and companionship. They get the suspect to carry out jobs for the group and slowly involve him in staged criminal acts, such as money laundering and drug trafficking.

Eventually, a meeting is set up with the group’s boss, Mr. Big, designed to get the suspect to cough up details of a past crime. The suspect might be told that police are onto him and he needs to tell the boss everything. Or the suspect could be told he needs to share his past because it’s the only way the organization can ensure his loyalty.

The willingness of the accused to join a criminal organization and participate in simulated crimes can have a prejudicial effect on a jury, the court said. It is up to the Crown to show, on a balance of probabilities, that the probative value of the confession outweighs the prejudicial effect of the “bad character” evidence, the court said.

Judges must also be vigilant for police abuses, the court said, suggesting that police cannot be allowed to “overcome the will of the accused and coerce a confession.” Violence or threats of violence are unacceptable; so too are operations that prey on a suspect’s vulnerabilities, such as mental health problems or youthfulness.

Thursday’s decision stemmed from the case of Nelson Lloyd Hart, convicted in 2007 in Newfoundland of two counts of murder in the drowning deaths of his twin three-year-old daughters, Krista and Karen.

Hart, who has a Grade 5 education and was living on social assistance, was the target of a four-month Mr. Big sting. Officers pretending to be part of a criminal gang befriended Hart and assigned him to be a courier for the group. They paid him $16,000 cash, put him up in fancy hotels and fed him nice meals. Hart came to view them like “brothers.”

When it came time to meet the group’s boss, Hart initially denied involvement in his daughters’ deaths, insisting he had suffered an epileptic seizure — the same story he had originally told police. But the boss refused to accept Hart’s answer, repeatedly telling him, “Don’t lie to me.”

Hart changed his answer and said he had drowned his daughters because he was worried his brother would gain custody of them. A couple days later he took an undercover officer to the scene of the drowning and explained how he had pushed his daughters into the water.

In 2012, a majority of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Court of Appeal overturned Hart’s conviction and ordered a new trial, questioning the reliability of his confession. The Crown appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The top court Thursday said that the financial and social inducements provided to Hart raised serious doubts about the reliability of Hart’s confession. There was also significant potential for prejudice. After all, here was a man who had bragged about killing his children.

“It would be unsafe to rest a conviction on this evidence,” the court said. However, it left up to the Crown to decide whether to have a new trial.

While Justice Thomas Cromwell agreed with the bulk of the majority’s decision, he said the admissibility of Hart’s statements should be determined at a new trial.

Mr. Big stings have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. In June, an Ontario Superior Court judge threw all out the evidence gathered by police in a Mr. Big sting against Alan Dale Smith, who was charged in a 1974 murder.

The Toronto Star reported that the judge said that the sting carried out by Durham Regional Police elicited a confession from Smith with holes so big you could “drive a Mack truck” through them.

Photos July 31: Top images from around the world

A cyclist rides past an art installation showing an unexploded bomb, set near the Taras Shevchenko monument in the center of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, close to Poland's border on July 31, 2014. . (YURKO DYACHYSHYN/AFP/Getty Images)

The day’s best photos, as selected by editors at Postmedia News, are a stunning collection of the greatest images from around the world.

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 31: Elvish writing is seen on ‘Anduril’, a prop sword belonging to Aragorn, hero of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movie trilogy on July 31, 2014 in London, England. The sword, belonging to actor Sir Christopher Lee and estimated at $150,000-250,000, forms part of Bonhams ‘There’s No Place Like Hollywood’ movie memorabilia auction taking place in New York on November 24, 2014. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A Bonhams employee holds a prop wizard staff belonging to the character Saruman of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movie trilogy on July 31, 2014 in London, England. The staff estimated at $100,000-150,000, forms part of Bonhams ‘There’s No Place Like Hollywood’ movie memorabilia auction taking place in New York on November 24, 2014. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A lantern with war image is seen on July 31, 2014 at the museum of Sepult culture in Kassel, Germany, during an exhibition dedicated to games in World War I. AFP PHOTO / DPA/ UWE ZUCCHI /GERMANY OUTUWE ZUCCHI/AFP/Getty Images)

A North Korean woman works at the Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang textile factory, Thursday, July 31, 2014, in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is the country’s largest textile factory with 8,500 workers, where eighty percent of them are women.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

North Korean women who work at the Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang textile factory spend their free time in a sauna at their dormitory in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, July 31, 2014. This is the country’s largest textile factory with 8,500 workers, where 80 percent of them are women. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A young boy stands by an art installation showing an unexploded bomb, set near the Taras Shevchenko monument in the center of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, close to Poland’s border on July 31, 2014.  (YURKO DYACHYSHYN/AFP/Getty Images)

U.N. workers remove a wounded donkey, injured by an Israeli strike earlier, along with killed ones at the Abu Hussein U.N. school, in Jebaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, July 30, 2014.  (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

A North Korean woman works at the Kim Jong Suk Pyongyang textile factory, Thursday, July 31, 2014, in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is the country’s largest textile factory with 8,500 workers, where eighty percent of them are women. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

33 dead after stampede at rap concert on beach in Guinea’s capital

People await news of friends and family near the scene of a stampede that took place after a rap concert in the city of Conakry, Guinea.

CONAKRY, Guinea — Hundreds of people leaving a late-night rap concert on a beach in Guinea rushed to leave through a single exit, creating a stampede that killed at least 33 people, officials said Wednesday.

The victims included children as young as 10, and most bodies brought to an overflowing morgue in the capital were still dressed in bathing suits and swim trunks. Some had bled from their mouths after their small bodies were trampled, causing internal bleeding.

“We are not used to seeing such a large number of bodies at the same time. It’s such a tragedy, these young victims killed in the prime of their life,” said an employee at Donka Hospital where bodies awaited burial.

The hospital’s director, Dr. Fatou Sike Camara, announced the toll of 33 deaths.

President Alpha Conde went on television to declare a week of national mourning and promised a full investigation. The capital’s beaches were ordered closed until further notice.

“The president calls on authorities at all levels to take the necessary steps so that this same tragedy never happens again in our country,” his office later said in a statement.

More than 700 people had gathered on the beach in Conakry, the capital city, for a concert celebrating the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which featured the Guinean rap groups Instinct Killers and Banlieuzart.

Witnesses said the stampede happened after the show ended as the large crowd tried to exit through a small gate. Some people fell to the ground and were trampled.

Increased poaching of rhinos and elephants sparks crackdown on traffickers

Rhino horns, horn products, cash, and gold ingots were seized by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigators in California in 2012 as part an investigation into rhino horn trafficking. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo

The poaching of rhinos and elephants is reaching crisis levels and going after people trafficking their parts is now the priority for American wildlife investigators, officials said Wednesday, in the wake of an announcement that a Canadian had been charged with smuggling wildlife items across the border.

Despite strict export laws and public appeals from celebrities, the underground trafficking of objects made from endangered species is a growing multibillion-dollar industry that has attracted organized crime, said Edward Grace, deputy assistant director of law enforcement for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“(The trafficking of rhino and elephant parts) is the highest priority investigation for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “If something isn’t done to stop this illegal trade, there’s a good possibility our children won’t be able to see elephants or rhinos in the wild.”

Xiao Ju Guan, an antiques dealer in Richmond, B.C., was indicted this week by a federal grand jury in New York after an undercover sting involving U.S. wildlife agents.

Guan travelled to New York from Vancouver on May 29 and paid $45,000 for two black rhinoceros horns from undercover wildlife agents posing as traffickers, according to court documents.

Guan took the horns to a nearby shipping store, intent on sending them to an address in Point Roberts, Wash., just south of the Canadian border, the court documents state. On the shipping label, Guan allegedly wrote that the box contained “handicrafts” worth $200.

Authorities allege that since 2012, Guan and his partners have smuggled dozens of wildlife items containing rhino horns, elephant ivory and coral, worth more than half a million dollars.

A federal public defender assigned to Guan did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.

In this file photo, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Duke of Cambridge feeds a black rhino called Zawadi as he visits Port Lympne Wild Animal Park on June 6, 2012 in Port Lympne, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Guan is one of 19 people who have been arrested since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Department of Justice began a crackdown on the illegal trafficking of rhinoceros horns three years ago.

Authorities acted after noticing an “astronomical” spike in the price of rhino horns on the black market — up to $30,000 per pound — and in response to alarming reports out of Africa about the number of rhinos that were being poached, Grace said.

In South Africa alone, the number of rhinos poached climbed to 1,004 in 2013 from 333 in 2010, according to a news release this month from South African National Parks.

Organized crime groups have been becoming involved in the trafficking of parts, Grace said, citing the arrest and conviction of members of an Irish gang known as the Rathkeale Rovers, considered a major player in the global rhino horn trade.

“Now we’re seeing organized crime getting involved because it’s a high-profit crime with low risk,” Grace said.

Experts attribute the expanding underground trade to the growing purchasing power of Asia’s middle class. Rhino horns are sought after particularly in China and Vietnam, Grace said.

In Vietnam, the horns are held up as a status symbol and believed to hold medicinal value. In China, the horns have been carved into libation cups and passed off as antiques. Elephant ivory, meanwhile, is typically used to make jewelry and sculptures.

Leigh Henry, senior policy adviser at the World Wildlife Fund, said Wednesday the need to devote more resources to wildlife trafficking extends beyond the killing of animals.

The poaching of elephants and rhinos has an impact on tourism, and the trafficking of their parts is helping fund insurgent groups and support other forms of criminal activity, including drug and weapons trafficking.

It’s not enough anymore just to go after the poachers, Henry said.

“We need to be targeting the kingpins,” she said.

Earlier this year, Prince William, retired soccer player David Beckham and former basketball player Yao Ming appeared in a public service announcement encouraging viewers to “save our wild rhinos.”

Viewers were asked to imagine if all the people in the world could fit into a stadium.

“Sadly,” viewers were told, “all the wild rhinos in the world can — with room to spare.”

Dquan@Postmedia.com

By the numbers

$20,000 to $30,000: price per pound for rhino horns, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

20,000: number of elephants poached across the African continent in 2013, according to the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

1,004: the number of rhinos poached in South Africa in 2013 (in 2010, the number was 333), according to South African National Parks

$1 to $1.5 million: appraised value in 2011 of a set of Chinese rhino horn cups on the Antiques Roadshow

Watch Rob Ford go for a low-speed, high-caffeine coffee run with deadmau5

Rob Ford went on a coffee run with Deadmau5 and filmed with entire trip. Photo: Screenshot

We won’t go into too much detail about the video below, which features Toronto mayor Rob Ford sitting in the passenger seat of DJ deadmau5’s custom-wrapped Ferrari (which he has dubbed the Purrari, since it’s emblazoned with a gigantic nyan cat).

Instead, here are five things to watch out for as you tune in for the clip’s slow-moving, foul-mouthed and oddly intimate ride around Toronto:

1. Rob Ford’s coffee preference
The mayor of Toronto apparently relies on espresso (or as he says, “expresso”) to power himself through long nights of returning constituents’ phone calls. So if Rob Ford phones you at 1 o’clock in the morning, you know why. Expresso! Five at a time!

2. Rob Ford’s need for speed
More than once, the Toronto mayor admits to a predilection for flooring it while he’s driving to or from his Huntsville cottage in his Cadillac. “If the cops catch me,” Ford says, “I’m toast.”

3. Rob Ford’s appreciation for motor vehicles
Ford doesn’t actually seem to know too much about cars — certainly not as much as deadmau5, himself somewhat of an aficionado — but the Toronto mayor does dedicate substantial air-time to airing his grievances with fellow city councillors who prefer to take public transit or cycle to work. “It drives me nuts,” Ford says, later complaining that streetcars and cyclists clog his commute along Dundas home to Etobicoke.

4. Rob Ford’s love of things that are “cool.”
deadmau5’s car is “cool,” he says. Football, too, is “cool.” Not cool: a multi-million dollar BMX track planned for the PanAm Games. Not lobbying for the X-Games crowd, obviously.

5. Rob Ford is not a fan of texting while driving
Nor eating while driving, which he says is “the biggest problem.” (Reading while driving, though? Apparently not an issue.)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to blame Hamas after Israeli shells hit UN shelter in Gaza

An Israeli Merkava tank rolls along the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, on July 30, 2014, as it returns from combat in the Palestinian enclave. At least 17 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a packed Gaza market in a deadly raid that came as Israel was observing a four-hour humanitarian lull. Photo: GIL COHEN MAGEN/AFP/Getty Images

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is reiterating his government’s hard line against Hamas, saying it is solely responsible for the death and destruction in Gaza.

In Saskatchewan, Harper says that while no one likes to see the suffering and loss that is occurring in the Middle East, Hamas is to blame.

The prime minister calls Hamas a terrorist organization that has initiated the conflict, and continues it because it seeks the destruction of the state of Israel.

Harper adds that if a terrorist organization were attacking Canadians, there would be a similar response from Canada.

Earlier Wednesday, Israeli shells hit a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip that was sheltering displaced Palestinians, raising the ire of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. At least 17 people were killed.

The attack prompted the U.S. to level its harshest criticism against Israel after almost a month of fighting between Israelis and Hamas militants.

White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan also says the U.S. is “extremely concerned” that thousands of Palestinians aren’t safe in UN-designated shelters in Gaza, even though Israel’s military has told them to evacuate their homes.

Canadian Armed Forces member Michael Spears charged for drug offences in Trenton, Ont., area

TRENTON, Ont. — A member of the Canadian Armed Forces has been charged with drug offences in the Trenton, Ont., area.

Officials say regional and national law enforcement investigated sales of controlled substances and arrested a suspect on Tuesday.

It’s alleged the man was arrested at a traffic stop (on Highway 401) near Oshawa, Ont., east of Toronto, and that cocaine and $2,880 in cash were seized from two locations in Trenton and Kingston.

The investigation involved Ontario Provincial Police, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, Kingston police and RCMP.

Michael Spears, 27, of Kingston, is charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking in a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession of property obtained by crime under $5,000.

He has been released from custody and is expected to appear in court in Belleville on Sept. 18.

Photos July 30: Top images from around the world

Palestinian Ismail Radwan, 45, inspects the damage to his family apartment caused by a fallen minaret of the Al-Sousi mosque, that was destroyed in an Israel strike, at Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. Israeli aircraft struck dozens of Gaza sites on Wednesday, including five mosques it said were being used by militants, while several other areas came under tank fire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

The day’s best photos, as selected by editors at Postmedia News, are a stunning collection of the greatest images from around the world.

Young Indian Hindu devotees of Lord Shiva wade through floodwaters as they return from collecting water from the river Ganges, as they head towards the holy Hindu city of Varanasi during the month of Shravan, in Allahabad on July 30, 2014. AFP PHOTO/SANJAY KANOJIASanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images)

Syrian refugee Mohammed Ghassan, 8, poses for a picture at Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border, in Mafraq, Jordan. More than 2.8 million Syrian children inside and outside the country _ nearly half the school-aged population _ cannot get an education because of the devastation from the civil war, according to the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF. That number is likely higher, as UNICEF can’t count the children whose parents didn’t register with the United Nations refugee agency. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Syrian refugee Batoul, 6, poses for a picture at Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border, in Mafraq, Jordan. As Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr this week, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, some children received new clothes from aid agencies and played, though life in the camp can be hard.(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

A South Korean student displays a message during a rally against the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank and wishes for peace near the Israeli Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Palestinians inspect damage to adjacent houses from a fallen minaret of the Al-Sousi mosque that was destroyed in an Israel strike, at the Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 30, 2014. Israeli aircraft struck dozens of Gaza sites on Wednesday, including five mosques it said were being used by militants, while several other areas came under tank fire. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

TOPSHOTS A general view shows the collapsed minaret of a destroyed mosque in Gaza City, on July 30 2014 after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike. Israeli bombardments killed “dozens” of Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 16 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israel-Hamas conflict. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

TOPSHOTS Palestinians walk past the collapsed minaret of a destroyed mosque in Gaza City, on July 30 2014 after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike. Overnight Israeli bombardments killed “dozens” of Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 16 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israel-Hamas conflict.(MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian youths inspect destruction at a mosque in Gaza City, on July 30, 2014 after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike. Israeli bombardments killed “dozens” of Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 16 at a UN school, medics said, on day 23 of the Israel-Hamas conflict. (MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

Landslide triggered by rains hits village in India; more than 150 people trapped

A mudslide surrounds a building in Malin village in Pune district the western Indian state of Maharashtra on July 30, 2014. A major landslide struck a village in western India following heavy monsoon rains, leaving 150 people feared trapped, a rescue official said. The landslide submerged Malin village, said Alok Avasthy, regional commandant at the National Disaster Response Force. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

NEW DELHI — A landslide hit a village in western India following torrential rains Wednesday, sweeping away scores of houses and raising fears that more than 150 people could be trapped, officials said.

Federal rescue workers were being hampered by continuing rains and poor roads leading to the village of Ambe in Pune district in Maharashtra state, where the landslide buried about 40 houses, said local commissioner Prabhakar Deshmukh.

“Reaching the exact space is taking time because there is a lot of damage to the road,” Sandeep Rai Rathore, a top official of the federal National Disaster Response Force, told NDTV news channel.

A mudslide is seen in Malin village in Pune district the western Indian state of Maharashtra on July 30, 2014. (AFP/Getty Images)

Police and medical teams arrived in the area but had difficulty communicating because of poor telephone and cellphone connectivity, local legislator Dilip Walse Patil told CNN-IBN TV network.

“It is a small village and this happened very suddenly,” he added.

Landslides are common in the area during the monsoon season, which runs from June through September.

The Pune district about is 151 kilometres southeast of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. The nearest medical centre is about 15 kilometres from the village.

Connecticut man imprisoned for 21 years in killing he didn’t commit seeks millions in compensation

Kenneth Ireland is pictured in August 2009 as he leaves court in New Haven, Conn., after all charges were dropped against him.

HARTFORD, Conn. — A man cleared of murder and rape charges after being locked up for two decades made an emotional appeal Tuesday for millions of dollars in compensation, telling the state claims commissioner about the fear he endured in prison.

Kenneth Ireland was imprisoned at the age of 18 and released in 2009 at age 39 after DNA tests proved that another man fatally beat a mother of four in 1986. He’s seeking $5.4 million to $8 million under Connecticut’s wrongful incarceration law.

“You never think this is going to happen to you, especially in America,” Ireland said during his nearly two-hour appearance. “I figured there was an error being made and that they’d figure this out and it would go away.”

He described the terror he felt as a young man heading to a maximum security prison notorious for gang violence.

“I was in absolute turmoil. I was telling anybody who would listen there’s been a mistake made, I didn’t do this. I’m innocent,” he said. “I couldn’t get anyone to listen to me.”

Ireland said his ordeal began when he was 17 and was called to the Wallingford police station to answer questions about the drowning death of a friend a year earlier. Police soon began questioning Ireland about the beating death of 30-year-old Barbara Pelkey.

A SWAT team later arrested him at the sandwich shop where he worked, he said.

Witnesses testified at Ireland’s trial that he had admitted committing the crime. Ireland said those witnesses had lied to receive a $20,000 reward, but he was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Ireland’s mother, Cherry Cooney, told Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr. that her son wrote her a letter saying he would die in prison and that there was no hope.

“As a mother, it broke my heart,” she said. “It was a wasted 21 years of his life, a senseless waste.”

The claims commission hearing for wrongful imprisonment is the first in Connecticut. James Tillman was released from a state prison in 2006 after serving 18 years for rape and was paid $5 million by the legislature for his wrongful conviction.

Vance said during a break in the hearing that 22 other wrongful imprisonment cases are pending, though they are not as clear-cut as Ireland’s claim, which he called a “true innocent.” Other cases cite prison terms that extended beyond what they were called for and other claims of miscarriage of justice, he said.

Vance said he doesn’t know when he will announce his decision on Ireland’s claim.

Attorney General George Jepsen has told Vance he does not object to the compensation sought by Ireland.

In 2007, the Connecticut Innocence Project, which looks into potentially wrong convictions, began reviewing the case against Ireland. Following DNA tests, a Superior Court dismissed all charges against him.

In 2012, Kevin Benefield was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the beating death of Pelkey. He worked at a catering and car business in the Wallingford building where Pelkey worked.

Ireland, who now works as a bookkeeper, said he at first didn’t believe that the court set him free.

“No, no, nothing ever good happens to me,” he recalled telling his lawyers. “I was convinced I would still die in prison.”

Tiny drones catching up with hummingbirds – nature’s hovering marvels

Sgt. Scott Weaver poses in Waddington, England, with the tiny unmanned Black Hornet, used by the British Army in Afghanistan. Photo: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images

Tiny, high-end military drones are catching up with one of nature’s great engineering masterpieces.

A side-by-side comparison has found a “remarkably similar” aerodynamic performance between hummingbirds and the Black Hornet, the most sophisticated nano spycam yet.

“(The) Average Joe hummingbird” is about on par with the tiny helicopter that is so small it can fit in a pocket, says engineering professor David Lentink, at Stanford University. He led a team from Canada, the U.S. and the Netherlands that compared the birds and the machine for a study released Tuesday.

Birds are still far superior at flying around forests – and through cities – but Lentink predicts it is just a matter of time before machines master that as well.

“There is still a ton we can learn from nature,” Lentink said in an interview from California where robotic insects have taken flight in his lab.

For Tuesday’s study, he and his colleagues put 12 hummingbird species to the test against the Norwegian-designed Black Hornet.

Undated image released by the British Army Monday Feb 4 2013 of Sergeant Scott Weaver, of The Queens Royal Lancers launching a newly issued Black Hornet miniature surveillance helicopter during an operation in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/ Sgt Ruper Frere)

The tiny helicopters have GPS and cameras that relay video and still images to a handheld control unit. They have been described as a “lifesaver” by British troops who used them in Afghanistan to peak around corners and over obstacles looking for hazards. The Hornets are silent, sell for about $65,000 and weigh 16 grams – about four times the weight of the average hummingbird.

Hummingbirds are the only birds that hover, a feat they evolved and perfected millions of years ago as they competed for nectar from flowers.

While they have long inspired artists, poets and helicopter designers, the new study is the most detailed look yet at hummingbirds’ aerodynamic efficiency.

The scientists measured the lift, drag and power generated by wings from 12 hummingbird species. The wings were already in museum collections, so Lentink says they didn’t have to kill any birds.

The wings were put on a “wing spinner” that measured the torque required to move them. “The torque is tiny, so we did have to have very special, carefully calibrated force sensors,” says Lentink. Researchers have yet to come up with a way to replicate hummingbirds’ rapidly flapping wings so they use the spinner instead: “It creates a motion that is quite comparable except at the beginning and the end of the stroke,” says Lentink.

The Scandinavian-designed Black Hornet Nano weighs as little as 16 grams (0.56 ounces) — the same as a finch. The four-inch-long (10-centimeter-long) helicopter is fitted with a tiny camera which relays still images and video to a remote terminal. Troops used the drone to look for insurgent firing points and check out exposed areas of the ground before crossing. (AP Photo/ Sgt Ruper Frere)

Turns out hovering hummingbirds burn more energy than expected.

“Hummingbirds generate 40 per cent more power with their muscles than we thought before just to stay aloft,” says Lentink. “It’s remarkable. They’re small high-energy-density machines.”

The researchers then compared the wings to the rotor of the Black Hornet. He says the Norwegian firm, Prox Dynamics AS, provided the rotor but had no other input into the study.

They found the Hornet’s rotor to be about as aerodynamically efficient as hummingbird wings – though one species, Anna’s hummingbird, was 27 per cent better.

“It is really difficult to replicate the performance of natural flyers,” says Lentink. “The fact that we are now coming close really tells you engineering is catching up.”

Undated image released by the British Army Monday Feb 4 2013 of Sergeant Scott Weaver, of The Queens Royal Lancers launching a newly issued Black Hornet miniature surveillance helicopter during an operation in Afghanistan.  (AP Photo/ Sgt Ruper Frere)

But he says flying robots and drones are still no match for the way birds manoeuvre  though forests and “city canyons.”

Wind gusts and “complex environments” are still big problems. “We have to work on making these things safer so it doesn’t rain drones,” says Lentink, noting that hobbyists’ drones often crash.

Fuel systems are another challenge. The Black Hornet can fly about 25 minutes before its batteries need a recharge.

“If we could have robots that could drink nectar it would be fantastic,” quips Lentink, whose engineering team looks to nature for inspiration.

Study co-author Doug Altshuler at the University of B.C., who studies hummingbirds, could not be reach for comment.

Cool – and not so cool – uses for drones

The Norwegian firm Prox Dynamics AS will not comment on whether it has sold any of its Black Hornets in Canada, but  there are lots of potential uses  in the country for  fast-evolving drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

- The Aeryon Scout four-rotor quadcopter, produced by a Waterloo, Ont., company, has been taking images of B.C. forests, monitoring salmon populations and assessing train derailments.

- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been experimenting in Quebec with a metre-long quadcopter to keep an eye on crops by taking high-resolution images that can reveal plant health.

- Police are increasingly testing and using unmanned aerial vehicles to get a bird’s-eye view of accidents.

- The federal privacy commissioner issued a report last year that warned UAVs will be a “game-changer” as the technology proliferates.

- UAVs and facial recognition technology may make it possible to identify individuals at political protests. UAVs might also be used to track where people drive their vehicles.

- Long-range military UAVs can now track moving objects from kilometres away by day or night and may soon also be capable of tracking through walls.

SOURCE: SMCC/Science Pages