(Updates with background)

By Katharine Houreld

KABUL, March 11 (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead a Swedish journalist outside a restaurant in a brazen attack in one Kabul’s most heavily guarded districts on Tuesday, police and embassy sources said, underscoring growing insecurity threatening next month’s elections.

The Swedish Embassy identified the victim as Nils Horner, 51, who worked for Swedish Radio and had dual British-Swedish nationality.

“Nils was one of our absolute best and most experienced correspondents and what has happened to him today is terrible,” said Swedish Radio’s director-general, Cilla Benkö, who described this as one of the worst days in the corporation’s history.

“We are now trying to get as many details as we can.”

Horner had been waiting outside a Lebanese restaurant with his driver and translator when two men in Western clothes approached and one shot him at point-blank range in the back of the head, said Zubir, a guard at the restaurant who uses only one name.

The guard and a nearby shopkeeper said only one shot was fired.

The attack took place barely a minute’s walk from the site of another Lebanese restaurant, where Afghan Taliban fighters killed eight Afghans and 13 foreigners in January.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, who are seeking to oust foreign forces and set up an Islamic state, said the group was unaware of the attack but would investigate.

Hashmatullah Stanekzai, chief spokesman for the Kabul police chief, said Horner’s driver and translator were being questioned but there were no suspects in custody.

The neighborhood is home to several embassies, supermarkets and cafes frequented by foreigners. Police vehicles are permanently stationed at a roundabout a block away and the mansions that line the road have guards at each gate.

A daytime attack on a civilian walking in that part of the capital is highly unusual.

The attack comes as Afghanistan prepares for the withdrawal of NATO forces and landmark presidential elections scheduled for April 5. The Taliban have threatened to attack anyone who takes part.

Afghan troops with support from NATO are helping secure the elections.

A small contingent of Americans may remain behind if the next government signs a deal to allow them to stay, something President Hamid Karzai has so far refused to do. (Additional reporting by Jessica Donati, Hamid Shalizi and Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)


Overnight Valve released the Dota 2 Workshop tools, and some people reckon in doing so the company soft-launched the long-awaited Source 2 game engine.

"Everything in this package is a new game," wrote RoyAwesome on the Dota 2 subReddit.

A reference to Source 2 in the Dota 2 mod tools.

"It's all the Dota assets and code ported over to Source 2. That's why Hammer is different. That's why the console is different."

Hammer is Valve's map creation program for Source. A video of the new version being messed about with is below.

"The general consensus around the Source reverse engineering community is that this is really Source 2," RoyAwesome continued.

Valve, which operates on US West Coast time (eight hours behind UK time), is yet to make any announcement around Source 2, but it has been rumoured for some time.

Gamer Network's tech wizards tell me Valve may have simply released tools that relate to the Source 2 engine to be used to mod Dota 2, rather than launched the engine proper, but Valve's plan is unclear. We'll have more on Source 2 as the story develops.


Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump in seven key battleground states on Election Day 2016, though some races look to be close, according to early, live estimated results from the new election data service VoteCaster.

VoteCastr cautions that none of its data constitute “predictions” for who will win any specific state. For an explanation of how VoteCastr compiles voting data throughout election day, well before polls close, see the article by Slate.com senior writer Josh Voorhies at this link.

As of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Time, Clinton held leads in both Florida and Ohio — two key states that Trump must win to keep his path to the presidency alive — according to the VoteCastr data, which can be accessed via the online political magazine Slate.com at this link.

VoteCastr sees very close races in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Ohio https://t.co/YSk7PEglh6 pic.twitter.com/GpiQ3J1HvJ — Josh Levin (@josh_levin) November 8, 2016

With polls just minutes from closings Ohio, VoteCastr sees the race there as neck-and-neck. Clinton has won an estimated 2,534,965 votes, while Trump claims 2,516,534, VoteCastr estimates — a difference of just over 18,000 votes statewide.

Using data from all 67 Florida counties, Clinton has turned out an estimated 4,712,021 votes so far, while Trump has collected 4,404,119.

VoteCastr also began posting county-level breakdowns for each state in the afternoon. By 5:50 p.m. VoteCastr had taken into account about 94 percent of Florida’s expected turnout, with Clinton holding a 48 percent to 45 percent lead over Trump. See the full interactive map at this link.

Clinton’s total, if accurate, would give her more votes in Florida than President Barack Obama won there in 2012. Obama, who won the state, collected 4,161,850 votes to 4,050,540 for Republican Mitt Romney.

Sorting the VoteCastr data demographically shows that in “predominantly nonwhite counties” in Florida, Clinton had 1,366,755 votes to 770,485 for Trump, a lead of more than 500,000 votes in the minority-dominated counties. But in mostly white counties, Trump led by roughly 300,000 votes, 3,008,657 to 2,703,849 in the VoteCastr estimates.

In Ohio, as of 5:50 p.m., VoteCastr had reported that Clinton had turned out 2,353,327 voters, while Trump trailed by under 22,000 votes in a nail-biting race, with 2,331,714.

In fact in the VoteTracker county breakdown, VoteCastr has Trump leading by one point, 46 to 45 in Ohio.

Much of Clinton’s total in Ohio comes from the rust-belt state’s heavily populated, urban counties. In Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, Clinton led 62.6 to 30.3 percent over Trump. In Cincinnati’s Hamilton County, the Democrat held a 50 to 40.2 lead according to the VoteCastr estimate. And in Franklin County, home of the city of Columbus, Clinton led Trump 53.8 to 36.5 percent. VoteCastr had accounted for 88.4 percent of the expected turnout in Ohio.

Obama won Ohio narrowly in 2012, 50.1 percent to 48.2.

In New Hampshire, a state that had moved into the toss-up column thanks to a recent Trump surge in polling there, VoteCastr estimates put Clinton narrowly ahead with 279,140 votes as of 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Trump had collected 258,989 estimated votes.

In Colorado, Clinton has so far collected 767,953 votes. Trump’s estimate stands at 722,891 according to VoteCastr data. That’s Clinton with 46.3 percent of the vote to 43.6 for Trump, VoteCastr has calculated.

Nevada, a state where early voting results appeared to indicate a close but solid Clinton victory, saw Clinton clinging to an extremely precarious lead with an estimated 473,173 votes to Trump’s 465,706 by VoteCastr by 6 p.m. Eastern Time.

But Nevada political expert Jon Ralston saw problems with the VoteCastr results.

So Stein on the ballot here (she's not), bizarre Clark numbers and wrong number (off by 150K) of reg voters there. Model probs, @votecastr? — Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) November 8, 2016

VoteCastr acknowledged, and said it had fixed, the error.

Our Nevada results showed Jill Stein with ~1.7. She was in our survey: we messed up and we are correcting the Nevada results accordingly. — VoteCastr (@votecastr) November 8, 2016

However, VoteCastr showed Clinton leading in Clark County, where about 70 percent of Nevada residents reside — and home to Las Vegas — 49.4 to 41.8 percent, a 7.6 point lead.

In Pennsylvania, however, the early VoteCastr count did not look nearly as good for Clinton. But by 6 p.m. Eastern she had pulled ahead in the crucial state, albeit about 130,000 votes. But her lead lagged behind Obama’s 2012 performance in the state, mainly due to an unexpectedly soft turnout in Philadelphia County, home to the state’s largest city — and the nation’s fifth-largest.

The former Secretary of State had 2,310,013 votes by the VoteCastr estimate. Trump had collected 2,170,963. Clinton is nonetheless expected to win Pennsylvania, with the final Pollster.com polling average showing her leading 46.4 to 41.2, more than a five-point polling advantage.

Whose voters are going to the polls? Follow our @VoteCastr Turnout Tracker for the latest estimates: https://t.co/TEojnpFdaW pic.twitter.com/19hsZMVjgQ — Slate (@Slate) November 8, 2016

If the very early VoteCastr count held, Pennsylvania would have gone down as a major polling failure. But with the updated vote count, the Democratic candidate appears to be on her way to a close but comfortable victory in the state.

After a strong start for Trump in Iowa — where he was leading by nine points in the final Survey Monkey poll released on the morning of election day, Clinton had pulled ahead by 6 p.m. Eastern Time, according to VoteCastr estimates.

Clinton had 614,338 votes to Trump’s 599,045, in VoteCastr estimates.

But Iowa was another state where VoteCastr sees a disparity between vote totals and the percentages in its county-level breakdowns, as seen in the map at this link. Trump was leading by a point in Iowa in the county-level iteration of VoteCastr numbers, 46-45, with about 76 percent of the vote account for.

Clinton took an estimated 614,338 votes in Iowa, with Trump at 599,045 by 6 p.m. Eastern according to the estimated vote totals.

In a state where polling showed Clinton on her way to an easy victory, Wisconsin, VoteCastr results appear to bear out the polling prediction. Clinton had built a lead of more than 163,000 votes at 1,242,938 to 1,079,266 for Trump as of 6 p.m.

The live election day VoteCastr results are available from Slate.com at this link. VoteCastr data will also be announced and analyzed as it comes in to the “War Room” at Vice.com, in the live stream video at the top of this page.

By compiling and posting live estimated election day results before polls close, VoteCastr is breaking with a longstanding tradition in the media, in which news organizations stick to a kind of gentleman’s agreement that they will not publish or broadcast results until after polls close across the United States.

“The posture the media have collectively adopted on Election Day is paternalistic toward voters and puts journalists in the awkward and unfamiliar position of concealing information from their readers,” wrote Slate.com Editor-in-Chief Julia Turner, explaining why Slate and VoteCastr are taking the controversial step of making information on voting results public throughout election day.

“It’s also unsupported by social science. The news blackout that usually prevails is premised on the idea that publishing information about voter behavior may depress turnout. But such fears are unsupported by research. Academics examining the question have found no consistent effects on voter behavior. Which means that journalists are withholding information on a hunch,” Turner wrote.

This post will be updated with more details, as well as further data as soon as it becomes available.


Simple and Easy Vegan Waffles

|Serves 3-4|

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 Tbsp ground flaxseed

2 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp sugar (turbinado, coconut sugar, or maple syrup)

pinch of salt

1 Tbsp oil

1 cup almond milk

Instructions

Preheat waffle iron to your desired setting (we like ours more crispy). In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour, flaxseed, baking powder, sugar, salt). In a small bowl, whisk together wet ingredients (oil, almond milk). Pour wet ingredients in dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not over stir! Pour batter onto waffle iron (I use about 1/4 - 1/3 cup) and cook until golden brown. Enjoy!

Notes

*I always double this recipe and freeze any leftovers to use for quick breakfasts when I'm in a hurry.

*This recipe is designed for traditional waffle irons, not Belgian waffle irons.

xoxo,

Lauren


Last Thursday, a reporter with La Presse caught Thierry Bordelais outside of his Chateauguay home and asked him what he made of his neighbours’ concerns about his family taking up residence in the Montreal suburb.

“If they are worried, all they have to do is move,” Bordelais said, visibly irritated according to La Presse. “We’re free, we’re in a free country.”

“Has anything happened over the past 10 years?” he continued. “So why are they worried? I don’t see why they are worried.”

One would expect the same sort of exasperated defence by a husband of his wife if, say, she downed a bottle of schnapps at the last neighbourhood barbecue and started uncouthly hitting on someone’s teenage son. But Bordelais’ wife, Karla Homolka (or Leanne Teale as she is now known) did a little bit more than embarrass herself in front of the neighbours when she helped her former husband, Paul Bernardo, drug and rape her own teenage sister and participate in the rape and murder of at least two other girls. Indeed, I think Bordelais’ neighbours can be forgiven if they’re not entirely over that yet.

What was striking in the exchange between Bordelais and La Presse was not merely its tone-deafness, however, but just how utterly normal it all seemed: Here was a guy, returning home to his wife and three kids, pissed off to find reporters waiting for him in his driveway. Eventually he would go inside, maybe get something to eat, talk to his kids about their days and go to sleep beside one of the most reviled serial killers in Canadian history. Just like he had done every day for the past seven years.

It’s not unusual to hear of violent criminals attracting the attention of “serial killer groupies,” as they are colloquially called, or what is classified by psychology texts as those with “hybristophilia,” a sexual attraction to people who have committed violent crimes. Hybristophilia tends to affect more women than men and, according to at least one school of thought, can be explained as a consequence of a woman’s evolutionary drive to seek out a partner who can physically protect her offspring. Female admirers have reached out to notorious serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez and, so too, have some male admirers, including one who recently propositioned Rohinie Bisesar, the 40-year-old woman accused in the stabbing death in Toronto’s underground PATH system last year.

Despite this particular psychological explanation, some “serial killer groupies” claim that their attraction to certain criminals is bred not because of his or her violent past, but despite it. In a documentary TV series produced and directed by Errol Morris, true crime writer Sondra London adopts that position in attempting to explain her attraction to the “Gainesville Ripper” Danny Rolling, with whom she had a relationship while he was behind bars. When pressed by the interviewer about why she’s attracted to serial killers, London shoots back, saying, flatly: “That’s a lame question.” But when asked “Why the attraction to Danny Rolling?” she responds: “That’s different” and goes on to describe Rolling’s many endearing qualities, as if she was talking about any normal guy who didn’t happen to tape his victims’ mouths shut, stab them until they bled to death and mutilate their corpses.

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There is no answer as to whether the greater aberrant mind is one that’s attracted to a violent murderer or one that can separate a person from his or her murderous acts. And, indeed, in the case of Thierry Bordelais and Karla Homolka, it’s impossible to say whether their relationship was borne from a hybristophilia-type of attraction or a phenomenal ability on the part of Bordelais to see the new “Leanne Teale” as a woman distinct from “Karla Homolka” — mostly because all the public really knows of the courtship is that the pair was connected through his sister Sylvie Bordelais, who was Homolka’s lawyer.

Plenty of observers have remarked that one of the great tragedies of the Homolka story will come when her children realize that their mother committed some of the most horrific acts humans can do to one another. But it’s worse than that; since once that initial shock has worn off (if such a thing is possible) those kids will inevitably start thinking of their father, and wonder just what’s wrong with him that he could fall in love, and marry, a monster. There’s no comfort in mom or dad.

National Post

• Email: rurback@nationalpost.com | Twitter: robynurback


THEY spend hours wearing orange makeup and rigid smiles, trying to sell over-hyped items to viewers.

But would you buy from someone who doesn’t know the Moon is a moon?

An unbelievable video has emerged showing two hosts from US shopping channel QVC discussing what the moon could be.

Showing off a hideous patterned cardigan, Jane Treacy says: “It kind of looks like what the Earth looks like when you’re a bazillion miles away from the planet Moon.”

Her co-host, designer Isaac Mizrahi, chimes in, thoughtfully. “The planet Moon...”

Realising her mistake, Ms Treacy tries again. “Isn’t the Moon a star?”

“The Moon is a planet, darling,” Mr Mizrahi corrects her.

But she’s sharper than that. “Is the Moon really a planet?” she demands. “Don’t look at me like that. The Sun is a star ... Is the Sun not a star?”

Mr Mizrahi replies: “I don’t know what the Sun is.”

They get into an argument, with Ms Treacy insisting the Moon is not a planet, and both pleading with viewers to Google the answer.

“So what else is it?” Mr Mizrahi asks, stumped.

“I believe it’s a star ... or something,” Ms Treacy answers.

Looking a little sheepish, she adds: “I feel like sometimes, though I am educated, I expose in this show that this blonde could be real.”

Viewers of the clip on YouTube were incredulous.

“This should serve as inspiration,” wrote Troy. “The man who believes the Moon is a planet ‘that things live on’ is a millionaire who was a household name in the 90s for his eponymous fashion line. If he can do it, we all can.”

YouTube user paddles409 added: “The moon is a hollow, artificial satellite inhabited by giant, superior, hyperintelligent, ants. Hail Ants!”

MrJohn2010 was more despairing, calling it a “shameful display of scientific illiteracy”.

For all the QVC hosts still confused: the Moon is a moon, a natural satellite that orbits a planet — in this case, Earth.

Its weak atmosphere and lack of water cannot support life as we know it.

The Moon has no moons.


Yesterday it was reported that a group of scientists had put forward a new theory that epigenetic marks may play a key role in determining why people are gay. According to press reports, these “epi-marks” determine how genes are expressed and are normally “erased” between generations, but in cases where they are not erased, they may be passed on from a mother or father in a way that can lead to a child becoming gay.

Which means, according to Bryan Fischer, that homosexuality might be a “birth defect” which could lead prospective parents to choose abortion:

As I have said before, I suspect that not even homosexual activists today want the gay gene to be found, even if it exists, because of advances in prenatal genetic testing. It is now possible to routinely screen for 3500 genetic defects while a child is still in the womb.

So these activists rationally fear that preborn children who are detected with this gene will be aborted before they even have the chance to be born. After all, if 90% of babies in the womb who are diagnosed with Downs syndrome never draw their first breath, what are the chances that parents disposed to abortion will not exercise the same choice with regard to the gay gene?

The scientists in Koebler’s article, in my view, are now resorting to genetic subterfuge and are coming dangerously close to saying that homosexuality is the result of a genetic defect, a genetic abnormality. In other words, read from one angle, these same scientists are saying that homosexuality is the result of a birth defect.

…

So in other words, when something goes wrong genetically, and these markers are not erased, the epi-markers which provide an evolutionary advantage to parents instead do evolutionary damage to their offspring.

Now these researchers are quite at pains to avoid saying anything like this, but the logic to me seems inescapable: Homosexual children, on this theory, are born evolutionarily and genetically disadvantaged. They have been overexposed or underexposed to testosterone because something has gone wrong in the process of genetic transmission. In other words, they are the product of a genetic abnormality at best, a birth defect at worst.

… I expect many abortion-minded parents will want to know exactly how strong this epi-marker is in their unborn children so they can decide whether or not to exercise reproductive choice.

In fact, I expect that if this theory gains some currency, it will not be long before we have legislation from the homoexual lobby prohibiting “sex-selection” abortions on any child carrying this epi-marker.


A 2-year-old boy died this month after taking a drug-laced drink from his sippy cup, and a Jacksonville woman has been charged in his death.

Dana M. Anderson, 30, was arrested Monday, about a week after the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said an unresponsive child, Masia James Wright, was transported from a home in the 11000 block of Alta Drive.

The child was pronounced dead at Shands Jacksonville hospital, and an autopsy determined methadone toxicity was the cause. Methadone is a pain reliever and is used as part of drug addiction detoxification.

Anderson and her boyfriend, Ernest Wright, the child's father, went in for questioning by police. She said she left a purple child's cup with some of the drug on a bedroom dresser, the arrest report said.

Anderson was charged with aggravated manslaughter on a child younger than 18 years old by culpable negligence and was booked into the Duval County jail on $1 million bail.

She's been arrested in Jacksonville about a dozen times since 2006 on charges ranging from petty theft to possession of crack.

Matt Coleman

2 murder charges dropped by judge

A Jacksonville man who had been charged as the triggerman in a 2007 drug shooting has been cleared of the charges.

Cedric Cutter, who was released from jail in time to celebrate his 30th birthday Tuesday, had been locked up since Sept. 19, 2008, on two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of David R. Holmes, 41, and Martin Surapol, 37, at a boarding house off Lone Star Road in Arlington in 2007.

Cutter was accused of shooting the men on orders from Anthony W. Vaughan, 25, who remains convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting. Although prosecutors argued for the death penalty, a jury recommended a life sentence for Vaughan in October.

According to the Times-Union's news partner First Coast News, Circuit Judge David Gooding dismissed the case Monday after Cutter's defense team proved Cutter wasn't the accomplice. A description initially given of the murder suspect was 6 inches taller than Cutter and the lawyers also said Vaughan told people in jail that he didn't know Cutter.

The State Attorney's Office also said without the testimony from a key witness who since died, prosecutors saw no possibility of a conviction and made the decision to not pursue a trial in this case.

David Hunt

18-year-old arrested in September drive-by

Jacksonville police announced Tuesday the arrest of an 18-year-old in a drive-by slaying in September.

Shaheim Hasaan Lomax of the 200 block of East 48th Street is charged in the slaying of Spencer Eugene Winkfield, 20, who was shot Sept. 15 in the 5400 block of Liberty Street in North Jacksonville. Winkfield, of the 100 block of West 44th Street, was wounded in the foot and stomach. He died two days later.

An arrest report said Winkfield and at least two others were walking on the street when a car drove by and the driver began firing a handgun from the window. Police did not discuss a motive for the shooting.

Investigators collected several shell casings from the scene and they were matched to a gun found in a car driven by Lomax when police stopped the vehicle Monday. Police also recovered drugs in the vehicle.

Jim Schoettler

2 seriously injured when car strikes power pole

A man and a woman suffered life-threatening injuries after their car veered off the road and struck a power pole on Jacksonville's Westside early Tuesday.

The car was southbound on Rampart Road just south of Morse Avenue about 3 a.m. when the driver failed to negotiate a curve and hit a power pole at a JEA facility, said traffic homicide detective John Hurst of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

A man and woman in the back seat were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. The woman driving the car was ejected. She and a male passenger in the front seat had minor injuries.

Hurst said speed was a factor in the accident. It did not appear anyone was wearing a seat belt, he said.

Dana Treen

BAKER COUNTY

Macclenny man faces 22 counts of child porn possession

A 43-year-old Baker County man was arrested Tuesday on 22 counts of possession of child pornography following an investigation into a computer at his Macclenny home, according to the Florida Attorney General's Office.

Randall W. Lyons was booked into jail shortly after 9 a.m. on $3.4 million bail after investigators traced numerous images of child pornography to his computer, including some children as young as 1 year old.

Lyons and his wife have children, including one adopted from China, according to a website for Children's Hope International (www.childrenshopeint.org). So the Florida Department of Children and Families is involved in the case, said Jacksonville office spokesman John Harrell.

"The children are with family," Harrell said. "We are working closely with law enforcement and the family to ensure the safety of the children."

Attorney General's Office spokeswoman Sandi Copes said no specific victims have been identified.

Dan Scanlan

Alachua man killed in collision with truck

An Alachua County man was killed and another driver seriously injured in a collision Monday in Baker County.

Robert Harvis Gasche, 54, died at the scene of the 6:20 a.m. accident after his pickup truck veered in front of a northbound tractor-trailer rig on County Road 121 just north of the Union County line, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Gasche was southbound when his truck drifted onto the eastern shoulder of the road and then overcorrected onto the road into the path of the rig driven by Matthew Lee Ellis, 50, of Bradford.

Both drivers were wearing seat belts, according to the Highway Patrol. Ellis was taken to Shands at the University of Florida.

Dana Treen

CLAY COUNTY

Jail inmate tests positive for TB; about 30 exposed

A male inmate at the Clay County jail has tested positive for an active case of tuberculosis, the Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.

The agency is working to identify jail employees and inmates who might have had direct contact with the inmate, according to a Sheriff's Office news release. The current estimate is about 30 people.

The Sheriff's Office didn't identify the inmate, citing medical privacy laws, and declined to comment.

The inmate was arrested and booked into jail Nov. 3. The medical screening questionnaire responses were all negative with no indication of sickness or symptoms, the Sheriff's Office said. Tuberculosis was discovered later following a standard physical exam that included a TB skin test.

Matt Coleman

ST. JOHNS COUNTY

Motorist hits, kills bear crossing Interstate 95

A bear crossing Interstate 95 about 5 miles south of International Golf Parkway was killed early Tuesday when it was hit by a southbound pickup truck.

Camille Henderson Poirier III, 37, of Hastings was not hurt in the 12:45 a.m. collision with the bear that was crossing the highway from the west, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

The bear continued across the road and about 400 feet into the woods where it died. Poirier's Chevrolet truck had to be towed from the scene, said Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Leeper.

Poirier was wearing a seat belt.

Dana Treen


Obama Offers Second Chance For Missouri Court Nominee

Enlarge this image toggle caption Kelley McCall/AP Kelley McCall/AP

President Obama has made it a priority to choose federal judges who are diverse in terms of race or gender. But for the most part, he's avoided controversy for those lifetime appointments.

That's why the nomination of a Missouri lawyer named Ronnie White has raised the eyebrows of experts who've been around Washington for a while. Old hands remember that White was rejected for a federal judgeship back in 1999 after a party line vote by Senate Republicans.

Now, in what experts say could be an unprecedented step, he's getting another chance.

White has already made history, in more ways than one. The Democratic lawyer served three terms in the Missouri House of Representatives. He became the first African-American to sit on the state Supreme Court, sworn in at a courthouse where slaves were once sold on the steps. And 14 years ago, White suffered a rare defeat on the U.S. Senate floor in his bid to become a federal judge.

"We rarely ever see floor votes rejecting a nomination," says Sarah Binder, a political scientist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "That's what is so unusual and why I think almost everybody who's followed judicial nominations remembers the Ronnie White case."

Binder and other experts who study nominations say they can't remember a time when a judge who's been voted down in the Senate has been renominated.

"There may be a case way back when in the early 19th century but for all intents and purposes this is unprecedented for a president to come back and renominate someone," Binder adds.

White is unusual for another reason: He took the opportunity to defend himself and his record by testifying against his chief antagonist, former Missouri GOP Sen. John Ashcroft, during Ashcroft's own confirmation hearing to become attorney general in the George W. Bush years. White told the Senate back in early 2001 that he once thought he had a clear path to become a judge.

"And then I learned that Sen. Ashcroft was opposing me," White recalled. "I was very surprised to hear that he had gone to the Senate floor and called me 'pro-criminal,' with a tremendous bent toward criminal activity. That he told his colleagues that I was against prosecutors and the culture in terms of maintaining order."

White told lawmakers that Ashcroft had distorted his record: "I deeply resent those baseless misreputations. In fact, and I want to say this as clearly as I can, my record belies those accusations."

Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, followed up with Ashcroft himself.

"Sen. Ashcroft, did you treat Ronnie White fairly?" Durbin asked.

"I believe that I acted properly in carrying out my duties as a member of the committee and as a member of the Senate in relation to Judge Ronnie White," Ashcroft replied.

Ashcroft said he was bothered by White's record in death penalty cases and that the judge went out of his way to support defendants' rights, even in violent crimes. Anger from minority groups in Missouri ultimately helped cost Ashcroft his Senate seat, but it didn't stop his bid to become U.S. attorney general.

And White — now 60 years old — may yet have a second act too.

A spokesman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, told NPR the past criticism of the judge is "completely unfounded" and said she "looks forward to supporting his nomination."

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, told reporters he won't block White's bid for a Senate vote either.

Conservative groups who follow judicial candidates are digging through his record. Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network says given the recent change in Senate rules, she thinks White will get through this time.

"It's definitely clear that with the new 51-vote threshold it's going to be very difficult to stop his nomination," Severino says. "So I think they're hoping to get through now some of these more extreme nominees that before would have required a bipartisan consensus to move on."

The White House didn't respond to questions about why it renominated White for a federal judgeship. But White may have offered an answer, in his Senate testimony a dozen years ago.

"There was a lot of outrage about my nomination being rejected and particularly in the African-American community," White said. "And the reason for that outrage I believe, is when you have an African-American judge, African-Americans see that as one more step toward true equality."

For President Obama, who's made diversifying the bench a top priority, that may be reason enough to revisit the case of Ronnie White.


Matt Renshaw saw the shadow people. They hadn't been there for four days, but someone had opened a door and now there they were, right in his vision, running, walking, swaying from side to side. Once he saw them he couldn't concentrate. He had to pull away as the bowler ran in.

This enraged Ishant Sharma, who threw the ball down in anger and started a fight with Steven Smith before being moved away. Angry Ishant, too rarely seen, is by far the best Ishant.

He roars in next ball and follows right through to Renshaw to let him know how he's feeling. Soon he hits Renshaw on the hip. Another ball gets stuck in Renshaw's helmet after rattling around his face for a second. Then there is a bouncer that Renshaw barely avoids.

When Ishant goes straight and gets one to skid a bit, Renshaw is trapped plumb in front. He shrugs his shoulders and leaves the ground, practising the shot he should have played as the shadow people dance and rejoice.

A few minutes later, the shadow people dance again. Smith didn't make many bad decisions in his first innings of 127 overs, or even when he was in the field for 210 overs. But this one is bad, and Australia have spent all tour doing the right thing.

Australia have made a collection of decisions so far in this series. It started when S Sriram went from a development coach into the change room for this tour. He coached the batsmen on how to survive, and at times thrive, in India. But perhaps his greatest work was making Steve O'Keefe believe in himself. It was playing inside the line as Sriram had suggested and his constant mentoring of O'Keefe meant the weakest team to tour India, according to Harbhajan Singh, won a Test with a spinner who was fourth best , according to Shane Warne.

They were supposed to be embarrassed. Instead they had done the thing that teams had been trying to do all season in India.

In Bengaluru, Nathan Lyon got them off to a great start, and then it was the batmen's turn to step up. On a day when India were outstanding, Australia tried to just get far enough in front to win the game. As good as Shaun Marsh had been, it was his wicket at the close on day two that ultimately kept India in it. When Smith dropped Pujara, India battled to a lead big enough that Australia with a team of their very best players of spin would have struggled to get over the line. The chase and pitch was set up for an Australian collapse.

Australia have also been clever at little things. After O'Keefe's 12-wicket haul in Pune it would have been easy to think he would be a strike bowler in India, but Australia went straight back to using him as their stock bowler. It allowed Hazlewood more rest, it allowed Starc (Cummins) to be Starc (Cummins), and when Lyon's callous opened up, for O'Keefe to at least stop India getting away. They also got the ball to reverse while using their bowlers far better than Kohli used his. They played spin better over the first two Tests, they fielded and caught better, and they came up with intelligent plans and stuck to them well.

It's perhaps the most unAustralian they have been in India.

Shaun Marsh stood tall and blunted India Associated Press

An hour into this match, on a pitch so doctored that the Ranchi rolled mud was supposed to swallow the Australians whole, they looked completely at home. But then their first real problem on this pitch had nothing to do with this pitch: Warner failed again and they were leaving their fate in the hands of Glenn Maxwell.

Maxwell was a bizarre choice, as Australia had barely used Mitchell Marsh's allrounded-ness, and perhaps the more sensible thing to do was bring in Usman Khawaja. Very rarely is Maxwell a sensible thing to do, and when Australia needed someone to play very long innings, him coming out to bat at 140 for 4 with Australia at least 300 behind where they would need to be, few would have been confident. But Maxwell played either the best innings of his life, or the one that sets up the rest of it. But as good as he was, and as just phenomenally good as Smith continued to be, 451 never quite felt enough.

When they had India at 328 for 6, with Pat Cummins defying pretty much everything to storm through the crease, it did seem like it might be enough. Australia had tried all the tricks they had. Bowling dry with interesting fields designed to stop batsmen scoring efficiently, short quick spells of reverse from Hazlewood, and short quick cutters from Cummins.

India crawled past them, but no matter how good Cheteshwar Pujara looked, or how well Wriddhiman Saha timed the ball, Smith refused to concede a single run. Pujara made a double-hundred that was essentially a three-day arm wrestle with Smith's fields. They let him stay in; they rarely let him score. They were tired, and never looked like getting a wicket, but they never rolled over, they never let India score. If India was going to score, it was going to be out of the footholes or with significant risk.

Forget the part-timers, forget taking chances. There were no easy runs for India, and that took time, which turned out to be very important.

Even with the restriction of India's lead, and how long it took them to get there, there were problems for Australia. They had only faced more than 100 overs in the fourth innings of an Asian Test once, against Bangladesh, in 2006. The last time Australia batted an extended period to draw a game was six years ago in Sri Lanka. They hadn't won a series since then either. They had only batted 100 overs in their second innings in Asia 16 times.

This is a team that doesn't win series in Asia, doesn't bat out draws. Going into a final day with two wickets down, against the two best spinners in the world for these conditions, and a pit of despair outside the left-handers' off stump, this team was not equipped to draw this match. Not that Australia were the team that should have won in Pune, or stayed in the game in Bengaluru for as long as they did.

What makes this series more remarkable is that this isn't a great time for Australian cricket. It's hard to praise the selectors too much, when part of their plan was replacing Peter Nevill with Matthew Wade as wicketkeeper. Wade has averaged less with the bat since coming back into the team than Nevill did when he was axed. And it was Wade's drop that ultimately cost them a chance of winning this Test.

Then there is Mitchell Marsh, who even if he wasn't injured - even if he had never been injured - was an odd choice for a team with an underperforming No. 7. He became odder when he barely bowled a charity over in two Tests.

Then there was the fact that about five minutes ago, Callum Ferguson was playing. Or that the selectors seemed to pick Renshaw on a whim, and then started to second guess themselves when they realised the India tour was coming up. And they also threw Nic Maddinson into Test matches while they publicly slated the man who has now replaced him.

But there was some method to their madness. Australian selections are still based on things like grit, youth, and aesthetic wonders that are apparently natural talent. However, when they turned their team around after the debacle in Hobart, they made three interesting calls with their batting. They went for a young kid who would become a star, the guy with the best recent first-class record, and the most naturally talented player they had.

That got them two players who have been important since, Renshaw and Handscomb, and to be fair, Maxwell was out of favour, and Chris Lynn was injured, so Maddinson was probably third choice anyway.

They continued to make big calls for this tour. At times it seemed like almost everyone did not rate Shaun Marsh outside of people who know his father, Western Australians, and Australian selectors. There is sometimes an overlap in those categories.

Marsh is not a great batsman. If he was, with all the advantages he has had, he would have played a lot more than 22 Tests by the age of 33. He certainly would have averaged a hell of a lot more than 40 in first-class cricket and he would have averaged over 40 in more than one country. It just so happened that one country was Sri Lanka, and he also has a huge average in the IPL. So it made sense to see him as an Asian specialist.

But it was still a risk. Marsh might know his game, he might be better in Asia than most Australian players, and he might also be one of Australia's best players of spin - averaging 62, double his average against pace. While that might seem enough, in India you need big scores as well, and Marsh doesn't do that. He can score, but he doesn't score big daddy runs. His highest in first-class cricket is 182, and that is part of the reason he doesn't average more.

Matthew Wade and Virat Kohli shook hands and called it a draw after Australia had batted out 100 overs Associated Press

That hasn't been a big problem on this tour as Marsh has never gone past 70, and yet both of his fifties have been very good knocks. His 66 in Bengaluru ended up being remembered for its limp end, but in the context of the game it was a terrific knock. The incredible part was how he found a way to survive on that pitch. And that is what he needed to do today.

The thing is, unlike in Bengaluru, Marsh had some help in Ranchi. Peter Handscomb has made three hundreds in each of the last three Sheffield Shield seasons. He played IPL and county cricket, and for someone still pretty young, he is a well-rounded and experienced. But he's also weird. That's okay if you're chosen as a kid on a whim because you have something special about you. When you're 25, and you've never played for Australia, and your batting technique looks like a drunk guy trying to imitate Steve Smith, getting into the Australian team is not a sure thing.

Had there not been a crisis of faith after losing to South Africa, Handscomb might have had to wait a couple of years for a spot. Instead he was thrust in, and runs followed. Even in India, where he hasn't gone on with it, he has almost always looked better than most of the other batsmen. In Bengaluru, on a pitch where to survive you had to cobble together three or four ideas and hope for the best, he was the one player who looked like he could have chased down the total.

It was that cricket brain that shone again today. For 28 straight balls Marsh, who had fought hard against Jadeja in the rough, didn't have to face Jadeja in the rough. When India finally got Jadeja back at Marsh, it was halfway through the day, the ball was softer, Jadeja wasn't in rhythm, and the spit and fire were long gone.

For the rest of the day, the two played so incredibly smart. Marsh made sure to get outside the line, Handscomb took 13 runs off a poor over from Ashwin, so India would have to take him off and change their plans. They looked for runs, turned the strike over when it suited them, and played the kind of cricket Australians don't play in India that often.

While India might have looked flat and out of ideas, and could blame the soft ball and the fact the pitch didn't fall apart as they wanted, they also had to credit this partnership because both players were in control of over 90% of the balls they faced. That would be incredible on day one, but for the fifth day, with one guy still proving himself at 33 and another in his first Tests outside home, it was a tremendous effort. When the new ball did start to play up again, and Marsh struggled before getting out, it was Handscomb who remained.

Had those two got out, the Test could have ended poorly for Australia. Wade could have got a ball from the rough, and then the tail would have not only had to handle the spinners and the pitch, but also the crowd.

Instead, the crowd was quiet. Handscomb had silenced them and they were a shadow of how it had been the evening before.

It even turned out that it wasn't the shadow people distracting Renshaw. It was M Vijay on the field. The only shadows Australia saw at the end of the day were those of disappointed Indian fielders, as they knew a win was slipping away.

When Handscomb knocked a ball gently through the covers, the shadows went to collect it, but Handscomb stood still. He could have run, but if he did there was a chance that Wade would have to face Jadeja out of the rough, so he refused the runs. While it probably wouldn't have mattered much - the game was drawn shortly after - Hanscomb had made another sensible decision.

Australia have no Starc, a barely functioning David Warner, and with one Test to play the score is 1-1. They haven't been jumping at shadows like they usually do in India. They are determined to do the right thing. And more often than not, they have.


Miss Peru pageant contestants share violence against women statistics instead of body measurements

Updated

When it came time for contestants at this year's Miss Peru pageant to give their waist, hip and bust sizes, more than 20 women instead recited facts about trafficking, femicide and harassment.

Leading the protest was Camila Canicoba of Lima who said "my measurements are: 2,202 cases of femicide reported in the last nine years in my country".

The winner, 20-year-old Romina Lozano, said her measurements were "3,114 women victims of trafficking up until 2014", on the most watched show in Peru on Sunday (local time).

"My measurements are: the 65 per cent of university women who are assaulted by their partners," Bélgica Guerra, representing Chincha, said.

"My measurements are: more than 70 per cent of women in our country are victims of street harassment," contestant Juana Acevedo said.

The organisers also projected newspaper clippings of stories about violence against women as the contestants posed in bikinis at a theatre in the capital city, Lima.

The women are hoping to represent Peru in November's 66th Miss Universe competition in Las Vegas.

Miss Peru 2018 organizer Jessica Newton told Buzzfeed: "Everyone who does not denounce and everyone who does not do something to stop this is an accomplice".

"Women can walk out naked if they want to. Naked. It's a personal decision," she added.

"If I walk out in a bathing suit I am just as decent as a woman who walks out in an evening dress."

The protest comes amid a slew of sexual harassment accusations towards film mogul Harvey Weinstein and now House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey.

The allegations towards Weinstein, originally sparked by a New York Times article detailing harassment towards Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd, prompted the #MeToo social media campaign.

Thousands of women began sharing their personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse using the #MeToo hashtag.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Meet the woman behind the Me Too campaign (ABC News)

In the weeks that followed, countless numbers of women working in the film industry spoke out, accusing Weinstein of making unwanted advances towards them, and of sexual assault and rape.

Spacey is the latest prominent man in Hollywood to be called out for his behaviour.

Actor Anthony Rapp, best known for starring in the musical Rent and Star Trek: Discovery, said he was invited to a party at Spacey's apartment in 1986 when he was just 14 and said Spacey, then 26, put him on his bed and climbed on top of him at the end of the night.

A second actor has now made a sexual harassment allegation towards Spacey.

Mexican actor Robert Cavazos said he encountered Spacey at the bar of London's Old Vic Theatre where he tried to fondle him against his will.

Reuters/ABC

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, sexual-offences, women, peru

First posted


WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the U.S. is “going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future” after he abruptly canceled a scheduled vote on the contentious Republican health care bill Friday.

“Obamacare is the law of the land, and it will remain the law of the land until it’s replaced,” Ryan said.

Republicans pull Obamacare replacement as bill fractures party

The vote on the American Health Care Act planned for Friday afternoon was scuttled minutes before it was to be held. House Republican leaders and the White House failed to win over a bloc of conservative members who thought the measure didn’t go far enough in repealing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

“Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains,” Ryan told reporters Friday afternoon. “We’re feeling those growing pains today.”

The failure to bring the bill to a vote is a major embarrassment for President Trump, Ryan and congressional Republicans, who had vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act since its passage in 2010.

“We came really close today, but we came up short,” Ryan said.

U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan arrives to talk to reporters on March 24, 2017, during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Republican members of the conservative Freedom Caucus had balked at the bill’s failure to repeal insurance regulations and presented a unified front that ultimately forced Ryan to pull the measure.

A House Republican aide told CBS News that Mr. Trump spoke to Ryan at 3 p.m. Friday and asked him to cancel the vote.

Ryan said Mr. Trump has “really been fantastic” in advocating for the bill, saying he “gave his all in this effort.”

Ryan informed members of the Republican caucus of his decision to cancel the vote during a meeting shortly after the cancellation. Following the meeting, Rep. Bill Flores of Texas told CBS News’ Walt Cronkite that Ryan told members the GOP would be pulling the bill and moving on to another subject. Flores said Ryan told the caucus they would focus on other reforms for now.


Argentina's foreign minister pales at the thought that anyone would compare the country's current scandal with Argentina's dark past known as the "Dirty War." In his first in-depth U.S. television interview, Hector Timerman dismisses talk that the mysterious death of a prosecutor about to charge him and the country's president with serious crimes is anything like the "terrible" times three decades ago. Timerman speaks to Lesley Stahl about the death of Alberto Nisman and the charges he made before his untimely death in a 60 Minutes report to be broadcast Sunday, March 8 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. An excerpt from Timerman's interview will be broadcast tonight on the CBS Evening News.

Nisman died from a bullet to the head just one day before he was to formerly present his case against Timerman and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner accusing them of conspiring to protect Iranian officials implicated in the 1994 bombing of AMIA -- the Buenos Aires Jewish community center -- that killed 85 people. All of Argentina is debating over whether it was suicide or murder. Some say it is reminiscent of the Dirty War.

"Nah, it's impossible,"scoffs Timerman. "We are talking about things that were terrible, terrible," he says, referring to the thousands who disappeared and died at the hands of the military junta or its proxies, including horrific executions when they were pushed out of aircraft over the sea or jungles.

Timerman says he will not speculate whether Nisman was murdered or killed himself, but denies the charges of the 51-year-old prosecutor. Nisman lay out his case in a 289-page report. He accused Timerman and Kirchner of seeking a trade deal with Iran in return for protecting the officials, a deal Timerman had secretly made with the Iranians. "Well, that's a lie. That's a total lie. I never said that. Nisman never showed any evidence that I said that," he tells Stahl. Furthermore, says Timerman, only a judge could rescind the standing order that Interpol detain the Iranian officials in question, which would have been part of any deal.

Stahl also speaks to the last known person to see Nisman alive. In a rare interview, Diego Lagomarsino was a tech worker in the prosecutor's office. He gave Nisman a gun - the one that was used in his death - because the prosecutor said he wanted additional protection; Lagomarsino says Nisman told him he did not trust his 10 bodyguards. Nisman was very upset, recounts Lagomarsino, "He told me, 'Do you know how it feels that your daughters don't want to be with you because they are afraid that something will happen to them...', I had never seen Nisman so concerned," he says.

The latest twist in a tale that has transfixed Argentinians and captured the world's attention is what a forensics report commissioned by Nisman's ex-wife concluded: he was murdered and that his body was moved after his death.


To be skilled in critical thinking is to be able to take one’s thinking apart systematically, to analyze each part, assess it for quality and then improve it. The first step in this process is understanding the parts of thinking, or elements of reasoning. These elements are: purpose, question, information, inference, assumption, point of view, concepts, and implications. They are present in the mind whenever we reason. To take command of our thinking, we need to formulate both our purpose and the question at issue clearly. We need to use information in our thinking that is both relevant to the question we are dealing with, and accurate. We need to make logical inferences based on sound assumptions. We need to understand our own point of view and fully consider other relevant viewpoints. We need to use concepts justifiably and follow out the implications of decisions we are considering. (For an elaboration of the Elements of Reasoning, see a Miniature Guide to the Foundations of Analytic Thinking.) In this article we focus on two of the elements of reasoning: inferences and assumptions. Learning to distinguish inferences from assumptions is an important intellectual skill. Many confuse the two elements. Let us begin with a review of the basic meanings: Inference: An inference is a step of the mind, an intellectual act by which one concludes that something is true in light of something else’s being true, or seeming to be true. If you come at me with a knife in your hand, I probably would infer that you mean to do me harm. Inferences can be accurate or inaccurate, logical or illogical, justified or unjustified.

Assumption: An assumption is something we take for granted or presuppose. Usually it is something we previously learned and do not question. It is part of our system of beliefs. We assume our beliefs to be true and use them to interpret the world about us. If we believe that it is dangerous to walk late at night in big cities and we are staying in Chicago, we will infer that it is dangerous to go for a walk late at night. We take for granted our belief that it is dangerous to walk late at night in big cities. If our belief is a sound one, our assumption is sound. If our belief is not sound, our assumption is not sound. Beliefs, and hence assumptions, can be unjustified or justified, depending upon whether we do or do not have good reasons for them. Consider this example: “I heard a scratch at the door. I got up to let the cat in.” My inference was based on the assumption (my prior belief) that only the cat makes that noise, and that he makes it only when he wants to be let in. We humans naturally and regularly use our beliefs as assumptions and make inferences based on those assumptions. We must do so to make sense of where we are, what we are about, and what is happening. Assumptions and inferences permeate our lives precisely because we cannot act without them. We make judgments, form interpretations, and come to conclusions based on the beliefs we have formed. If you put humans in any situation, they start to give it some meaning or other. People automatically make inferences to gain a basis for understanding and action. So quickly and automatically do we make inferences that we do not, without training, notice them as inferences. We see dark clouds and infer rain. We hear the door slam and infer that someone has arrived. We see a frowning face and infer that the person is upset. If our friend is late, we infer that she is being inconsiderate. We meet a tall guy and infer that he is good at basketball, an Asian and infer that she will be good at math. We read a book, and interpret what the various sentences and paragraphs — indeed what the whole book — is saying. We listen to what people say and make a series of inferences as to what they mean. As we write, we make inferences as to what readers will make of what we are writing. We make inferences as to the clarity of what we are saying, what requires further explanation, what has to be exemplified or illustrated, and what does not. Many of our inferences are justified and reasonable, but some are not. As always, an important part of critical thinking is the art of bringing what is subconscious in our thought to the level of conscious realization. This includes the recognition that our experiences are shaped by the inferences we make during those experiences. It enables us to separate our experiences into two categories: the raw data of our experience in contrast with our interpretations of those data, or the inferences we are making about them. Eventually we need to realize that the inferences we make are heavily influenced by our point of view and the assumptions we have made about people and situations. This puts us in the position of being able to broaden the scope of our outlook, to see situations from more than one point of view, and hence to become more open-minded. Often different people make different inferences because they bring to situations different viewpoints. They see the data differently. To put it another way, they make different assumptions about what they see. For example, if two people see a man lying in a gutter, one might infer, “There’s a drunken bum.” The other might infer, “There’s a man in need of help.” These inferences are based on different assumptions about the conditions under which people end up in gutters. Moreover, these assumptions are connected to each person’s viewpoint about people. The first person assumes, “Only drunks are to be found in gutters.” The second person assumes, “People lying in the gutter are in need of help.” The first person may have developed the point of view that people are fundamentally responsible for what happens to them and ought to be able to care for themselves. The second may have developed the point of view that the problems people have are often caused by forces and events beyond their control. The reasoning of these two people, in terms of their inferences and assumptions, could be characterized in the following way:

Person One

Person Two

Situation: A man is lying in the gutter. Situation: A man is lying in the gutter. Inference: That man’s a bum. Inference: That man is in need of help. Assumption: Only bums lie in gutters. Assumption: Anyone lying in the gutter is in need of help.

Critical thinkers notice the inferences they are making, the assumptions upon which they are basing those inferences, and the point of view about the world they are developing. To develop these skills, students need practice in noticing their inferences and then figuring the assumptions that lead to them. As students become aware of the inferences they make and the assumptions that underlie those inferences, they begin to gain command over their thinking. Because all human thinking is inferential in nature, command of thinking depends on command of the inferences embedded in it and thus of the assumptions that underlie it. Consider the way in which we plan and think our way through everyday events. We think of ourselves as preparing for breakfast, eating our breakfast, getting ready for class, arriving on time, leading class discussions, grading student papers, making plans for lunch, paying bills, engaging in an intellectual discussion, and so on. We can do none of these things without interpreting our actions, giving them meanings, making inferences about what is happening. This is to say that we must choose among a variety of possible meanings. For example, am I “relaxing” or “wasting time?” Am I being “determined” or “stubborn?” Am I “joining” a conversation or “butting in?” Is someone “laughing with me” or “laughing at me?” Am I “helping a friend” or “being taken advantage of?” Every time we interpret our actions, every time we give them a meaning, we are making one or more inferences on the basis of one or more assumptions. As humans, we continually make assumptions about ourselves, our jobs, our mates, our students, our children, the world in general. We take some things for granted simply because we can’t question everything. Sometimes we take the wrong things for granted. For example, I run off to the store (assuming that I have enough money with me) and arrive to find that I have left my money at home. I assume that I have enough gas in the car only to find that I have run out of gas. I assume that an item marked down in price is a good buy only to find that it was marked up before it was marked down. I assume that it will not, or that it will, rain. I assume that my car will start when I turn the key and press the gas pedal. I assume that I mean well in my dealings with others. Humans make hundreds of assumptions without knowing it---without thinking about it. Many assumptions are sound and justifiable. Many, however, are not. The question then becomes: “How can students begin to recognize the inferences they are making, the assumptions on which they are basing those inferences, and the point of view, the perspective on the world that they are forming?” There are many ways to foster student awareness of inferences and assumptions. For one thing, all disciplined subject-matter thinking requires that students learn to make accurate assumptions about the content they are studying and become practiced in making justifiable inferences within that content. As examples: In doing math, students make mathematical inferences based on their mathematical assumptions. In doing science, they make scientific inferences based on their scientific assumptions. In constructing historical accounts, they make historical inferences based on their historical assumptions. In each case, the assumptions students make depend on their understanding of fundamental concepts and principles. As a matter of daily practice, then, we can help students begin to notice the inferences they are making within the content we teach. We can help them identify inferences made by authors of a textbook, or of an article we give them. Once they have identified these inferences, we can ask them to figure out the assumptions that led to those inferences. When we give them routine practice in identifying inferences and assumptions, they begin to see that inferences will be illogical when the assumptions that lead to them are not justifiable. They begin to see that whenever they make an inference, there are other (perhaps more logical) inferences they could have made. They begin to see high quality inferences as coming from good reasoning. We can also help students think about the inferences they make in daily situations, and the assumptions that lead to those inferences. As they become skilled in identifying their inferences and assumptions, they are in a better position to question the extent to which any of their assumptions is justified. They can begin to ask questions, for example, like: Am I justified in assuming that everyone eats lunch at 12:00 noon? Am I justified in assuming that it usually rains when there are black clouds in the sky? Am I justified in assuming that bumps on the head are only caused by blows? The point is that we all make many assumptions as we go about our daily life and we ought to be able to recognize and question them. As students develop these critical intuitions, they increasingly notice their inferences and those of others. They increasingly notice what they and others are taking for granted. They increasingly notice how their point of view shapes their experiences. This article was adapted from the book, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life, by Richard Paul and Linda Elder. Back to top


Throughout history, doubles teams come and go. Some duos have great runs for a single tournament, or even a couple months, but few teams stick together and take their synergy to the next level.

These 10 teams, although varying in time spent playing together, have all made their mark on the Melee doubles scene, and will go down in history as the 10 best teams of all time.

10. Husband and Wife

Although Kevin "Husband" Dassing and Christopher "Wife" Fabisczak do not share the same level of victories or dominance as other doubles teams on this list, they should be mentioned for their prominence in the early years of competitive Melee.

Their combination of Marth and Peach, each in their white outfits, facing off against old school legends like Ken and Isai have earned them a spot in memorable doubles play.

9. Shroomed and S2J

Dajuan "Shroomed" McDaniel is a highly skilled doubles player, and his recent run with Johnny "S2J" Kim have seen them rise through the ranks at a fast pace.

In a doubles environment full of deadly teams at their prime, taking third or second consistently at tournaments like Royal Flush and Smash'N'Splash 2 make their Sheik/Falcon combination not one to disregard.

8. Plup and Hungrybox

Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma, one of the Five Gods of Melee, teamed with top player, Justin "Plup" McGrath, and won several tournaments in a short period of time.

The height of their team was 2014, where they took first at EVO 2014 and Smash the Record using a combination of Jigglypuff and Sheik/Samus.

7. Leffen and Ice

William "Leffen" Hjelte and Mustafa "Ice" Akcakaya have teamed on-and-off since 2013, but they have established a strong presence in doubles tournaments in recent times.

Although they tend to fall short of first place, their double Fox play has introduced an alternative to the usual doubles meta, and the two have taken out other powerful doubles teams in 2017.

6. Lucky and Mang0

The team "4 Leaf Mango" cemented their legacy in doubles tournaments from 2007 to 2014, where they consistently placed first more often than not.

In 2007, they defeated Ken and Isai at Super Champ Combo, and despite losing the tournament, the victory signaled a time of transition. Their combination of Jigglypuff/Fox and double spacies earned them big wins at Pound 4, the APEX series, and Kings of Cali.

5. Hungrybox and Mew2King

Hungrybox and Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman are monsters in their own right for Melee singles, and even bigger monsters in Melee doubles.

When the two Gods team up, they rarely lose to anyone. Jigglypuff is a huge menace in doubles play because of its ability to wall out opponents, save teammates, and work as part of a team while still being a powerful single character.

Mew2King's support-heavy style matched up perfectly with Hungrybox and the two won every tournament they entered together until The Big House 5. They placed first in key tournaments like The Big House 3, EVO 2013, and APEX 2015.

4. Armada and Android

In recent tournaments, Adam "Armada" Lindgren and Andreas "Android" Lindgren have used the power of the brother meta to dominate the international stage.

After winning first place in numerous European doubles tournaments, Armada and Android have shown their ability in 2017, taking first in GENESIS 4, and Royal Flush just a short while ago. The Lindgrens use a combination of Sheik/Peach or Sheik/Fox. They are best known for creative combos and innovative teammate saves that showcase their high levels of synergy.

3. PewPewU and SFAT

Kevin "PewPewU" Toy and Zachary "SFAT" Cordoni have rarely teamed with anyone other than each other, instead developing Melee's most synergistic doubles team over time.

"Pewfat" is a major threat to any other doubles team. Their combination of Marth and Fox has granted them first place at EVO 2015, Smash Summit, and they were virtually unbeatable in 2016.

PewPewU and SFAT know each other's movements and combos so well that it seems like they share one mind as they play. SFAT tends to close in and output damage, while PewPewU uses Marth's attack range to keep the momentum in their favor.

2. Ken and Isai

Some smashers argue that Ken and Isai dominated the doubles scene in the early years of competitive Melee because of a lack of competition at the time. From 2003 to 2007, no other doubles team could even touch the duo, regardless of whether they went Marth/Sheik or Marth/Falcon.

When the best singles player in the world at the time (Ken) and the best doubles player in the world at the time (Isai) work together, the result is four straight years of domination with a handful of second place wins.

They definitely win first in terms of team name, as they called themselves "El Chocolate Diablo."

1. Armada and Mew2King

Armada and Mew2King take the top spot for taking first place in Doubles nearly every time they have ever entered.

Starting with a first place win in APEX 2012 and 2013, the two proceeded to win every doubles bracket they entered together until Paragon 2015. Mew2King is known for being the best doubles player in the world, but also stubborn in counter-picking and character choice.

Armada commented that, while at SKTAR 3 against Mang0 and PPMD, he had to persuade Mew2King to stay Sheik, having already won the first two games with their Peach and Sheik combo -- a decision that Armada believed would win them the game.

While they butted heads, they also balanced each other out in-game. Unfortunately, since Armada consistently teams with Android now, we'll never know of the potential legacy and dominance these two could have kept for years on end. Their winrate and domination whenever they decided to team won them the No. 1 spot as the best doubles team of all time.


published in Trail Walker Spring 2014, official publication of New York/New Jersey Trail Conference, nynjtc.org

By Howard E. Friedman DPM

High tech companies keep trying to push their products onto the trail either in your backpack or on your wrist. Mapping apps for smart phones and ipads. Solar powered recharging stations so you can recharge your ipad and smart phone. But many hikers, backpackers and trail runners continue to eschew the idea of letting technology get between them and the trail. But this spring the newest high tech product for hikers will actually come between you and the trail – as long as you are wearing socks. Really smart socks.

This spring a new high-tech sock will be available to runners and hikers that will record and project an image of exactly how your feet are striking the ground. Are you a heel striker, forefoot striker or mid-foot striker? Do you put all your pressure under your great toe but no pressure under your smallest toe? Understanding how the foot strikes the ground can be an important distinction especially for runners since many researchers suggest that mid-foot and forefoot strikers are less prone to injuries than heel strikers. (Walkers and hikers are normally heel strikers). The socks can also detect if the wearer’s gait has changed during a hike or run.

Called Sensoria, these socks will also record distance traveled, cadence (number of foot strikes per minute), number of steps taken, calories burned, as well as other metrics. A number of existing products can also tell you similar information, such as the Nike+Sportswatch. But no other device on the market geared for the athletic consumer can generate data and images of the pressure generated under your feet.

The Sensoria sock made of a washable, synthetic wicking fabric will be available this spring from Heapsylon LLC, a Redmond, WA based technology company, Ceo Davide Vigiano said in a telephone interview. The company also manufactures a shirt and sports bra that use a sensor to record heart rate.

The sock incorporates three sensors, one each under the heel, near the big toe and near the small toe, which are less than 1 mm thick. To activate the sensors, the hiker or runner attaches an anklet to the sock via snaps. The battery powered anklet contains an accelerometer and other technology which allow it to capture data from the sensors in the sock. The user can then see the data as it is being collected on his or her smart phone or even Google glasses, with pressure reflected as either green, the lowest reading, or yellow or red, a high reading. Or the user could download the data from the anklet via Blue Tooth technology or using a USB connection, after the hike to see a video strip of their foot strike history and other data, like distance traveled. Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman Ph.D, who has authored many studies on barefoot running and is the author of The Story of the Human Body (2013 Pantheon) is collaborating on the mobile application, according to Mr. Vigiano. The sock sensors do not have a GPS but can be paired with existing GPS units, Vigiano said.

These smart socks are ideal for trail or road runners who not only want to know how far and fast they have traveled but also want to modify their gait, be notified if they have started suddenly pronating or supinating and want to try and minimize injury. Moreover, the sock could give a before and after look at exactly how an arch support or foot orthotic changes the pressure under the foot.

Howard E. Friedman

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Washington (CNN) -- Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War I veteran, has died, a spokesman for his family said Sunday. He was 110.

Lawmakers Monday began to move ahead with proposed resolutions that would allow his casket to be displayed at the Capitol Rotunda, and plans were already in the works for his burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Buckles "died peacefully in his home of natural causes" early Sunday morning, the family said in a statement sent to CNN late Sunday by spokesman David DeJonge.

Buckles marked his 110th birthday on February 1, but his family had earlier told CNN he had slowed considerably since last fall, according his daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives at the family home near Charles Town, West Virginia.

Buckles, who served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe during what was then known as the "Great War," rose to the rank of corporal before the war ended.

His assignments included that of an escort for German prisoners of war. Little did he know he would someday become a prisoner of war during World War II.

He came to prominence in recent years, in part because of the work of DeJonge, a Michigan portrait photographer who had undertaken a project to document the last surviving veterans of that war.

As the years continued, all but Buckles had passed away, leaving him the "last man standing" among U.S. troops who were called "The Doughboys." His death leaves only two verified surviving WWI veterans in the world, both of whom are British.

President Obama issued a statement Monday on Buckles' passing, saying he and first lady Michelle Obama were "inspired" by Buckles' story.

Frank Buckles lived the American Century," Obama's statement said. "Like so many veterans, he returned home, continued his education, began a career, and along with his late wife Audrey, raised their daughter Susannah. ... We join Susannah and all those who knew and loved her father in celebrating a remarkable life that reminds us of the true meaning of patriotism and our obligations to each other as Americans."

Buckles told CNN in 2007 he accepted the responsibility of honoring those who had gone before him, and to be their voice for permanent, national recognition after he was gone.

DeJonge found himself the spokesman and advocate for Buckles in his mission to see to it that his comrades were honored with a monument on the National Mall, pushing for improvements to a neglected, obscure city memorial nearly in the shadow of the elaborate World War II memorial.

Buckles wanted national status granted to the D.C. War Memorial, a marble gazebo built in the 1930s that, for now, honors only his comrades from the District of Columbia. His call was to elevate the designation of the site to join U.S. honors accorded to those who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

"We have come to the end of a chapter in history," said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a House sponsor of legislation to upgrade the DC War Memorial. "Frank was the last American Doughboy -- a national treasure," Poe said in a statement provided to CNN.

The "Frank Buckles WWI Memorial Act" passed the House but had not cleared the Senate before Congress adjourned. Poe on Monday restated his support for a House resolution that would allow a public display for Buckles in the Capitol Rotunda. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia is a co-sponsor of the Senate proposal.

Buckles, at the age of 108, came to Capitol Hill from West Virginia in 2009 to testify before a Senate panel on behalf of the D.C. War Memorial bill. He sat alongside Rockefeller and fellow proponent Sens. John Thune, R-South Dakota, and Jim Webb, D-Virginia.

"I have to," he told CNN when he came to Washington, as part of what he considered his responsibility to honor the memory of fellow veterans.

Rockefeller praised Buckles in a statement Monday, calling him "a unique American, a wonderfully plain-spoken man, and an icon for the World War I generation."

"His life was full and varied and an inspiration for his unbridled patriotism and enthusiam for life," the statement said.

Buckles, after World War I ended, took up a career as a ship's officer on merchant vessels. He was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and held prisoner of war for more than three years before he was freed by U.S. troops.

Never saying much about his POW experience, Buckles instead wanted attention drawn to the plight of the D.C. War Memorial. During a visit to the run-down, neglected site a few years ago, he went past the nearby World War II memorial without stopping, even as younger veterans stopped and saluted the old soldier in his wheelchair as he went by.

Renovations to the structure began last fall, but Buckles, with his health already failing, could not make a trip to Washington to review the improvements. The National Park Service is overseeing efforts that include replacing a neglected walkway and dressing up a deteriorated dome and marble columns.

Details for services and arrangements will be announced in the days ahead, the family statement said.

Flanagan, his daughter, said preliminary plans began weeks ago, with the Military District of Washington expressing its support for an honors burial at Arlington, including an escort platoon, a horse-drawn casket arrival, a band and a firing party.

"It has long been my father's wish to be buried in Arlington, in the same cemetery that holds his beloved General (John) Pershing," Flanagan wrote as she began to prepare for the inevitable in a letter she sent to home-state U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia.

"I feel confident that the right thing will come to pass," she said.

Manchin issued a statement Monday that read, in part, "He lived a long and rich life as a true American patriot, and I hope that his family's loss is lightened with the knowledge that he was loved and will be missed by so many."

Buckles in 2008 attended Veterans Day ceremonies at the grave of Pershing, the commander of U.S. troops during World War I. He also met with then-President George W. Bush at the White House, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon.

"The First World War is not well understood or remembered in the United States," Gates said at the time. "There is no big memorial on the National Mall. Hollywood has not turned its gaze in this direction for decades. Yet few events have so markedly shaped the world we live in."

Buckles' family asks that donations be made to the National World War I Legacy Project to honor Frank Buckles and the 4,734,991 Americans with whom he served.

More than 116,000 Americans were killed, and more than 204,000 wounded, in the 19 months of U.S. involvement in the war, according to the Congressional Research Service. The overall death toll of the 1914-18 conflict was more than 16.5 million, including nearly 7 million civilians, and more than 20 million wounded.

Details can be found at: www.frankbuckles.org.


Now that Congress is back in session, it's time to do the people's business again. So let's get on with the nuisance hearings again, shall we?

Topic A: Thanks to the McClatchy folks, let's look in on the scandal that is the administration's giving Iran its own fcking money back.

GOP Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee on oversight and investigation, said the evidence presented made it difficult to believe the payment wasn't a ransom. He asked the witnesses if they could guarantee that the money will not fund terrorism. "I can't speak for every dollar that goes in and out of Iran, as you know," Backemeyer said.

Hold on a second. Common sense got caught in my throat there for a minute. The crime dog on this case is…this guy? I mean, really, this guy? At least Trey Gowdy was a prosecutor once. This guy is a former reality show star who first got famous as a politician by whining about his congressional salary. This is that deep bench again.

But, since we are handed this lemon, let's make some lemonade, shall we? Let's go back to the golden days of early 1981, when the great sunshine of Amon-Ra Reagan had fallen upon the land, and some hostages came home—after which $12 billion in Iranian assets that Jimmy Carter had frozen suddenly were thawed. Six years later, he let them have $454 million more of their assets. There was a great unfreezing under the Reagan Administration.

In between, of course, the administration sold them some lovely missiles at a decent price. Even if you don't believe that William Casey jacked around with the mullahs during the 1980 campaign—And I do believe that he did—there's no question that Ronald Reagan was in business with Iran almost from the moment he first sat down in the Oval Office, and a helluva lot more business than Barack Obama ever thought of doing. And it all proceeded from the release of the hostages in 1981.

Plus, really now, this guy?

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Our Nation's Capital, McClatchy reports that another predictable hooley has broken out in another committee room.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, opened the hearing by condemning Clinton for intentionally making a "mess" of the system for archiving and retrieving documents at the State Department that has frustrated legitimate requests for information from Congress, the media and the public…For example, Chaffetz noted, The Associated Press had to go to court to obtain all the detailed planning schedules from Clinton's four-year tenure as the nation's top diplomat. Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, told the committee the agency is improving its records management but continues to struggle with the heavy volume of open-records requests it receives. For more than two hours, Kennedy sparred with lawmakers over a range of questions related to Clinton's records. He said the department is currently sorting through thousands of records it received from the FBI following its investigation of Clinton.

Welcome to the next four years.

Maybe.

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Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice star Jesse Eisenberg is doing some damage control after comparing his experience at Comic-Con International: San Diego to “some kind of genocide.”

"Maybe on some cellular memory level, that's the only thing that seems like an equivalent social experience," Eisenberg told The Associated Press during another stop on The End of the Tour’s press tour. "Even if they're saying nice things, just being shouted at by thousands of people, it's horrifying."

He went on to state that he was honored to be at Comic-Con, and was only making use of hyperbole in his genocide remark. "I of course was using hyperbole to describe the sensory overload I experienced. I sometimes do employ that," he said. "I'm a normal person who has normal sensory experiences, so Comic-Con was very overwhelming for me. That said, it was really an honor to be on that end of such jubilation."

Eisenberg will play Lex Luthor in Batman v. Superman, and explained that such hyperbolic statements are just what’s expected of a villain. "They expect me to use hyperbole!" he said. "If I didn't I'd be the hero who usually speaks pretty practically."


With less than one week to go until polling day, and irrespective of the fact that the polls are extremely close (they are), we should focus on whether the electoral system helps one or other of the two largest parties, argues Tom Lubbock. In recent years the system has had a skew to Labour resulting from its biases. Will it this time around?

Unlike so many of the outstanding questions about this intriguing election it is possible to give an answer to the electoral skew question before in-person voting begins on May 7th. By taking a forecast of the election result and running it through some simple equations it is possible to give a rough and ready verdict on who is going to benefit from the electoral system. I’ll present the results of this analysis and then move further into the weeds to explain what is going on and how it was carried out.

Graph 1 illustrates the skew from previous elections since 1983, and the finding that on the basis of the best forecast of the 2015 election Labour and Conservatives are almost exactly equal beneficiaries of the electoral system in 2015. Labour benefit to the tune of 41 seats and the Conservatives benefit from a 40 seat skew. As you can see from Graph 1 the last time the system was in the habit of rewarding both large parties anything like this equitably was in 1997 and since then it has been one way traffic to Labour.

With the headline out of the way its time to unpack. The skew has four distinct causes:

Geographic distribution of votes Presence of minor parties in constituencies Different abstention rates Different constituency sizes

Graph 2 shows how the 4 different sources of skew have changed since 2005. It is important to note that these components of skew are independent and whilst one may be positive for a given party others may be negative for that party. It is clear from the graphs that the largest contributor to the overall skew in the system is vote distribution bias. Therefore I’ll describe how this distribution bias comes about, spell out the method that produced these results, and give a few caveats.

We can’t talk ex ante of skew and the biases that cause it and we can’t do so separate from a specific election. Each component part depends on the behaviour of voters. In the case of distribution bias the advantage or disadvantage that the system gives a party is determined by how efficiently its vote is ‘used’ to win seats. If a party wastes millions (literally) of votes which are cast in seats where it finishes second or third then this counts against it.

The way to calculate how a party is affected by the way in which its vote is distributed is to add up the results of hypothetical elections where each party swaps its vote share with its competitors. We can then see whether, with a given vote share Labour does relatively better than, say, the Conservatives with the same vote share.

By taking the predicted percentage vote for each party in each seat (produced by the www.electionforecast.co.uk team) and using the electorate and turnout figures for each constituency from 2010 we can analyse the bias at a hypothetical 2015 election as forecast by electionforecast and it is these calculations that produce the above figures for 2015.

For the existence of this method we have to thank a Kiwi political scientist, R. H. Brookes. The even more extraordinary feat of adapting the method to the three party case has to be credited to Galina Borisyuk in papers written with her colleagues at Plymouth Michael Thrasher and Colin Rallings.

Despite the fact that it seems that the two largest parties are being rewarded evenly by the electoral system in this election smaller parties whose vote is not supremely regionally concentrated are harshly treated by the current system. Chris Hanretty has run the numbers and found that, on the same forecast being used here, this will be the most disporportional election ever (with a Gallagher index value of 20.4). And it is this skew against UKIP, the Lib Dems and in favour of the SNP that is driving calls for electoral reform (although oddly sometimes from the two largest parties who are still benefiting).

Some caveats:

The method used to derive the biases and skew is designed for 3 rather than 5 party politics. Anyone who can come up with a method for the n-party case gets themselves a published paper.

We don’t know turnout in each seat as the election hasn’t been run. Therefore I have to just use the turnout from last time in each seat.

The results are based on a forecast of each party’s vote share in each seat. It’s just a forecast and the result may be different (although I have faith in the forecast).

I am grateful to Matt Singh for encouraging use of the term skew.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the General Election blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.

About the Author


Two Michigan state senators are pushing a bill to allow pharmacies to sell medical marijuana—if the federal government approves—the Detroit Free Press reported last week.

“The voters decided that medical marijuana was a good thing for the state of Michigan, but unfortunately, very few parameters were put around that,” Republican Senator Randy Richardville told the paper.

Most interestingly, Prairie Plant Systems—the company that held the sole contract to produce medical pot for the Canadian government until recent changes in that country’s medical marijuana program—is lobbying hard for the bill. The company hired Chuck Perricone, a former state house speaker, to move the medical marijuana bill forward. “The market for this is virtually untapped. The potential for the product is tremendous,” Perricone told DFP.

But patient advocates are skeptical of the corporate pharmacy pot push. “If you’re able to grow in your basement there’s no reason to go to Walmart,” Americans for Safe Access chapter spokesman Rick Thompson told the Associated Press. He suggested the goal of the bill is to eliminate patient home growing rights in Michigan, and said such a move is against the spirit of the medical cannabis law approved by voters in 2008.


Inquiry will hear from men abused as boys at Northern Ireland children’s home and allegations that perpetrators were protected by working as spies

An inquiry into child abuse across a range of institutions in Northern Ireland will focus on Tuesday on the Kincora boys home scandal including allegations that MI5 blackmailed a paedophile ring which operated there in the 1970s.

The historical institutional abuse inquiry will hear evidence from men who were abused at Kincora when they were children and their allegations that the perpetrators were protected because they were state agents spying on fellow Ulster loyalists.

A number of Kincora abuse victims have tried through the courts to force the scandal to be included in the national investigation into allegations of establishment paedophile rings operating in Westminster.

Gary Hoy tried and failed last month to force the home secretary to include Kincora in the Westminster inquiry. Hoy and others fear that the Kincora inquiry, which is based in Northern Ireland and taking hearings at the court in Banbridge, County Down, will not have access to sensitive MI5 intelligence files on the people who ran Kincora.

Amnesty International has described the Kincora scandal as one of the most disturbing to emerge from the Ulster Troubles.

Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty’s director in Northern Ireland, said: “Nothing less than a full public inquiry – with all the powers of compulsion which that brings – can finally reveal what happened and the role that the security services may have played in the abuse of these vulnerable boys.”

At least 29 boys were sexually abused by Kincora housemaster and prominent Orange Order member William McGrath and others at the east Belfast home. One boy is said to have committed suicide following years of abuse by jumping off a ferry into the Irish Sea in the late 1970s.

Another of the abuse victims at Kincora, Clint Massey, told the Guardian last year that he even tried to file a report at a local police station in east Belfast about what was happening to him and other boys at the home in the mid-1970s. However, Massey said he was forcibly marched out of the RUC station by police officers and that his complaint was not recorded.

Former army intelligence officer and whistleblower Colin Wallace has consistently claimed that MI5, RUC special branch and military intelligence knew about the abuse going on at Kincora and used it to blackmail the paedophile ring to spy on hardline loyalists.

In 1980, Wallace was arrested and convicted of manslaughter. He spent six years in jail despite suggestions he had been framed. His conviction for manslaughter was quashed in 1996 in the light of fresh forensic evidence and shortcomings at his trial. In 1990, Margaret Thatcher was forced to admit that her government had deceived parliament and the public about Wallace’s role.

An independent investigation by David Calcutt QC found that members of MI5 had interfered with disciplinary proceedings against Wallace. As a result, Wallace was awarded £30,000 in compensation.

Three men were jailed for their part in abuse at Kincora in 1981, but attempts to establish the truth about British state involvement have been blocked. It has persistently been alleged that McGrath, who was a leader in an extreme evangelical Protestant group called Tara, was an informant for British intelligence. McGrath was jailed for sexual offences in 1981 and is now dead.

Theresa May, the home secretary, has insisted that the chairman of the Banbridge-based inquiry, retired judge Sir Anthony Hart, will have full access to government and intelligence files relating to Kincora.

The historical institutional abuse inquiry is investigating 22 orphanages, care homes and other institutions where child sexual abuse took place. The inquiry team is expected to hear from around 450 witnesses, some of whom have travelled from as far as the United States and Australia to give evidence.