centerforinvestigativereporting:
More than 14,000 people attended the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago this October. This 19,000-pound tactical protector vehicle, the Pit-Bull by Virginia-based Alpine Armoring, is nearly 8 feet tall, more than 7 feet wide, and comes standard with nine gun ports and a V-10 engine. Learn more about the militarization of local police departments in our new investigation.
Tom Curren, JBay
It’s been a year since I’ve been surfing. I went out during a big swell today and took a snapshot of the forecast before getting into the water at Surfrider at 6:15 a.m. Not surprisingly, the lineup was packed. Probably 200 guys out there. But it was awesome when I found my waves. Some of the sets got around head high. I got probably 5 or 6 rides on waist and shoulder high ones that seemed to go on for yards and yards, from second point, trimming and turning along the way.
Times South Asia bureau chief Mark Magnier and photojournalist Daniel Berehulak report on the mining situation in the Jaintia Hills district of India, located in the northeastern state of Meghalaya. Perhaps as many as thousands of underage workers as young as 8, lured by the wages, leave school to work in coal mines under perilous conditions. The country officially upholds mining safety standards and forbids child labor, but loopholes in state laws allow widespread abuses. The young miners descend on rickety ladders made of branches into the makeshift coal mines, scrambling sideways into “rat hole” shafts so small that even kneeling becomes impossible. Lying horizontally, they hack away with picks and their bare hands: Human labor here is far cheaper than machines.
Photo: A crane lifts miners out of a 300-foot-deep mine shaft in Ladrymbai, India. View more photos at the Framework gallery (they are a must-see). Credit: Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images
Dickensian
L.A. Now is our breaking local news section. Why are we switching to Facebook comments? Jimmy Orr, the managing editor of latimes.com, explained when we began rolling out Facebook comments in March:
Having our site built on different content management systems provides some hurdles. One is our commenting system — there’s not much uniformity.
Some of our stories require registration; some do not. Some of our comments appear right away, while others languish for a moderator to approve or deny. Still others disappear after one day, never to be seen again.
It’s not a good practice to make you wait to see your comments. It’s also not a good practice to have your comments vanish from an article. All issues we’re dealing with.
We need uniformity. And reader engagement is a high priority. Can we get some uniformity? What’s the best way to get there?
Facebook has a new commenting system that we’re interested in. It allows for “right away” commenting while providing an authentication system no one else can match.
Both are important. By allowing comments to go up in real time, it provides instant interaction among readers. By requiring a Facebook registration, it will cut down on the mean-spirited, profane and sometimes useless responses because one’s friends will also see the comments in their newsfeeds.
The Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill
The early narrative of the assault on Osama bin Laden had him using his wife as a human shield and firing from behind her. Now we learn he wasn’t armed. Why the changing White House narrative may be problematic
Read more at The Atlantic
UCLA undergrads were not far off in their prediction of where Osama bin Laden was hiding out.
Two years ago, a class of UCLA undergrads pretty accurately predicted the the location where Osama Bin Laden was hiding out. The students, working under UCLA geography professors Thomas Gillespie and John Agnew, used geographical theories and GIS software to home in on the world’s most wanted fugitive.
Science Insider explains:
According to a probabilistic model they created, there was an 89.9% chance that bin Laden was hiding out in a city less than 300 km from his last known location in Tora Bora: a region that included Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed last night.
On top of this, they identified 26 “city islands” that they considered to be the highest probability hideouts. To be clear: the class identified the nearby city of Parachinar as being the most likely hideout.
(via Ecosystem Geographers Predict Bin Laden’s Hideout - Politics - GOOD)
On orders of the president, a small U.S. team assaulted a secure compound in an affluent suburb of Islamabad to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The raid was conducted with U.S. military personnel assaulting on two helicopters. The team methodically cleared the compound, moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes. They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation and Osama bin Laden was killed by the assaulting force.
In addition to the Bin Laden family, two other families resided in the compound: one family on the first floor of the Bin Laden building and one family in a second building. One team began the operation on the first floor of the Bin Laden house and worked their way to the third floor. The second team cleared the separate building.
On the first floor of Bin Laden’s building, two Al Qaeda couriers were killed, along with a woman who was killed in crossfire. Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floors of the building. There was concern that Bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he did resist. In the room with Bin Laden, a woman, Bin Laden’s wife, rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.
Following the firefight, the noncombatants were moved to a safe location as the damaged helicopter was detonated. The team departed the scene via helicopter to the U.S.S. Carl Vincent in the north Arabian Sea. Aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vincent, the burial of Bin Laden was done in accordance with Islamic precepts and practices. The deceased’s body was washed and then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea.
(via theatlantic)
Inked on the chest of a Pico Rivera gang member was the detailed scene of a liquor store slaying that had stumped an L.A. County sheriff’s investigator for more than four years. It leads to a jailhouse confession from Anthony Garcia — and a first-degree murder conviction.
Photo: Anthony Garcia. Credit: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
