Tuesday, 10-31-06: Britain issued a sweeping report yesterday saying that the world faces a calamity on the scale of the Great Depression if nothing's done about global warming. They say rising sea levels, drought and flooding will displace 200 million people by 2050. Elephants in the bronx zoo recognize themselves in a mirror. An X was put above one elephant's eye with tape, for example, and when she saw it in the mirror, she kept touching it. Only human, chimpanzees and dolphins do that. China carries out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined. They execute more than 10,000 people each year, for crimes ranging from murder to tax evasion. Illegal fishing in the waters off Antarctica vacuums up tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill. The catches are used to feed salmon farms. Seals, whales and penguins are threatened with starvation. People in northwestern Turkey say they saw a strange fireball hovering over a lake that was the epicenter for a magnitude 5.2 earthquake. In local news, a woman in Bend filed suit for $90,000 against the owners of two pit bulls who attacked her. The woman who filed says she's been in therapy since the attack. Thursday, 11-2-06: The District Attorney's office released a scathing report yesterday about Multnomah County jails. It says they've "devolved into violent and costly near-chaos because the elected officials responsible for overseeing them are refusing to do their jobs." Deputies sometimes tape paper over surveilence cameras to hide their absences. Violent crimes among inmates go unreported and unprosecuted. Violent and nonviolent offenders share space in a population left to police itself. Sheriff Berney Giusto ignores abuse of sick time, overtime and comp time. "Prosecutors found a system broken on nearly every level." Ironic, isn't it, that the only place there are no police is in jail.... Friday, 11-3-06: An Army dog-handler convicted of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib is returning to Iraq with his military police unit. Specialist Santos Cardona served 90 days of hard labor. He was one of 11 soldiers convicted of crimes at Abu Ghraib. Dutch rescuers are trying to save 100 horses stranded on a knoll, surrounded by rising water. 18 horses have drowned, and the rest are huddled together in knee-deep water. Rescuers are bringing in horses who are strong swimmers to guide them out. A study finds the world will run out of seafood in 2048 at the present rate of eco-destruction. Overfishing and pollution will wipe out so many species that the global ocean ecosystem will collapse. The ocean won't sustain life anymore. The plankton who make the oxygen we breathe will die. What an interesting time to live in.... Saturday, 11-4-06: Rescue workers got the last of the 100 horses who were stranded in Marrum, Netherlands, off their island. The last one collapsed and had to be taken to a stable by tractor. The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons shouldn't be allowed to tell about the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk. They don't want these things known even to the detainees' lawyers. For the 14 high-value prisoners who were transferred from black prisons to Guantanamo Bay, the government's trying to keep them having lawyers at all. Days after shipping out Specialist Santos Cardona, a soldier convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib during a previous tour, the army ordered him back to his home base. For his own safety. A detective in NY was suspended becuase he tested positive for marijuana. He says his wife served him meatballs spiked with pot because she wants him to retire. She subsstitued pot for oregano in the recipe. In local news, a teenager shot his brother and killed him because he planned to steal money and drugs from him, and he knew he'd be upset when he found out. He test-fired his gun that day to make sure it worked properly. Their mother and father died of terminal illnesses, and their sister is missing and presumed dead.