Rivers receding in Calgary, 3 dead in floods

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? Water levels dropped, providing a measure of relief to the western Canadian city of Calgary, hit hard by floods that devastated much of southern Alberta province, causing at least three deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate.

The flooding forced authorities to evacuate Calgary's entire downtown and hit some of the city's iconic structures hard. The Saddledome, home to the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames, was flooded up to the 10th row, leaving the dressing rooms submerged.

Flames' president and CEO Ken King said Saturday that the Saddledome is a "real mess," with water still up to row 8 of the lower bowl. He said the flooding had caused a total loss on the event level with all mechanical equipment submerged under 15 feet (4.5 meters) of water.

"If you were a hockey player walking out of the tunnel to the ice, you'd be underwater yourself," he said during a news conference.

Water lapped at the roof of the chuckwagon barns at the grounds of the Calgary Stampede, which is scheduled to start in two weeks. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has said the city will do everything it can to make sure that the world-renowned party goes ahead.

Bruce Burrell, director of the city's emergency management agency, said Saturday they are seeing improvements in the rivers. Dan Limacher, director of water services for the city, said the Elbow river is expected to recede by about 60 percent over the next two days, while the larger Bow river will recede by about 25 percent.

The improving conditions Saturday morning prompted Calgary's mayor to tweet: "It's morning in Calgary! Sunny, water levels are down, and our spirit remains strong. We're not out of this, but maybe have turned corner."

However, Nenshi said later Saturday that while the city may have turned a corner, there is still a state of emergency in effect.

"Flows on Elbow and Bow (rivers) are dropping slowly. We do believe the peak has passed on the Elbow. However, water levels are still four times higher than 2005 flood levels," he said during a press conference.

Overflowing rivers on Thursday and Friday washed out roads and bridges, soaked homes and turned streets into dirt-brown waterways around southern Alberta.

High River, southwest of Calgary, was one of the hardest-hit areas and remained under a mandatory evacuation order. Police said they have recovered three bodies in the town.

It is estimated that half the people in the town of 13,000 experienced flooding in their homes. Police cut off access to most of the town and helicopters circled overhead. Abandoned cars lay submerged in water, while backhoes worked in vain to push water back from houses.

Police asked residents who were forced to leave the High River area to register at an evacuation shelter. By Saturday morning, 485 evacuees had registered at the shelter in Nanton, south of Calgary, and 278 people were on the inquiry list.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Saturday that during rescue and evacuation efforts on Friday in the High River area, approximately 800 people were evacuated by helicopter along with 100-200 people rescued by various water craft.

Ed Mailhot, a volunteer in High River, was working to build a database of registered evacuees and those who are looking for them. Cellphone service was not restored until late Friday.

"There are a lot of loved ones out there that people can't find, or they don't know where they are," he said. "It's still chaos."

Alberta Premier Alison Redford has warned that communities downstream of Calgary have not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters. Medicine Hat, downstream from Calgary, was under a mandatory evacuation order affecting 10,000 residents.

As the sun rose in Calgary on Saturday morning it wasn't raining. Burrell said some of the 75,000 flood evacuees from more than 24 neighborhoods will be allowed back into their homes. He said the goal is to allow people from portions of six communities back into their homes on Saturday. Residents of a neighborhood in one of those communities ? the high ground portion of Discovery Ridge ?have already been allowed back.

About 1,500 people in Calgary went to emergency shelters during the flooding, while the rest of those evacuated found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said. Schools and courts were closed Friday. Transit service in the city's core was shut down.

Dale McMaster, executive vice president of ENMAX, Calgary's power company, said Saturday that at least 30,000 customers remain without power.

Calgary's mayor said the downtown area remained off limits and employers will have to make arrangements to have staff work remotely until at least the middle of the week.

"It is extremely unlikely that people will be able to return to those buildings before the middle of next week," Nenshi said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Calgary resident, said he never imagined there would be a flood of this magnitude in this part of Canada.

The Conservative Party said Saturday that it has postponed its federal policy convention which was scheduled to begin Thursday at the Telus Convention Centre in downtown Calgary because of the floods.

"There are neighborhoods under water, so there is a lot of work we have to do to rebuild," said Michelle Rempel, a member of Parliament for Calgary Center. "Postponing the convention is the right thing to do for the people of Calgary."

Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, is the center of Canada's oil industry.

About 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on a typical day. However, officials said very few people had to be moved out, since many heeded warnings and did not go to work Friday.

A spokesman for Canada's defense minister said 1,300 soldiers from a base in Edmonton were being deployed to the flood zone.

The Mounties added that approximately 200 additional Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel were deployed Saturday from other parts of Alberta to assist with evacuation, rescue, traffic safety and security operations,

Calgary was not alone in its weather-related woes.

Efforts were under way Saturday to move more than 2,000 people from their homes in a flood-prone part of northeastern Saskatchewan because of rising water levels.

___

Associated Press writers Rob Gillies and Charmaine Noronha in Toronto and Jeremy Hainsworth in Vancouver, British Columbia, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rivers-receding-calgary-3-dead-floods-152008579.html

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US Military Presence in Africa Grows With Terror Threat (Voice Of America)

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Wrist Pain, Shoulder Pain, Neck Pain and Chiropractic

A patient of my San Diego Chiropractic practice came in the other day complaining of wrist pain, shoulder pain and neck pain.? She said that the wrist pain was debilitating and created limitations in the amount of force she could exert because of the pain it caused.? She also said that if she puts any pressure on her elbow with her fingers that she gets pain that travels from her elbow into her wrist.? Further more, she said that full left rotation of her neck causes neck pain, elbow pain and wrist pain.? Sounds complex doesn?t it?

Treating these symptoms with chiropractic should work because my exam shows that the bulk of her symptoms are coming from her neck ? it appears that she has a classic pinched nerve.? Chiropractic care will include electric stimm, ultrasound, hot packs and chiropractic adjustments.? She will also use ice packs at home on her neck, shoulder, elbow and wrist and she will begin specific mild stretches for her neck and upper back.

My experience tells me that she will get better ? however, if she doesn?t improve within a few weeks we will send her out for an MRI of her neck to see the extent of the pinched nerve.? Thankfully, 90% of patients get better with the course of care outlined above and we rarely end up ordering MRI exams.

Do you need help with a recent or chronic pinched nerve that is making you miserable?? If so, we can help!? Call us at (619) 280-0554 ? we can help regain your health.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steve Jones

10393 San Diego Mission Road Suite 130

San Diego, CA 92108

(619) 280-0554

Your San Diego Chiropractor

Source: http://jonespainrelief.com/blog1/index.php/wrist-pain-shoulder-pain-neck-pain-and-chiropractic.html

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Super full moon shines brightly this weekend

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A "supermoon" rises this weekend.

The biggest and brightest full moon of the year graces the sky early Sunday as our celestial neighbor swings closer to Earth than usual.

While the moon will appear 14 percent larger normal, skywatchers won't be able to notice the difference with the naked eye. Still, astronomers say it's worth looking up and appreciating the cosmos.

"It gets people out there looking at the moon, and might make a few more people aware that there's interesting stuff going on in the night sky," Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory said in an email.

Some viewers may think the supermoon looks more dazzling but it's actually an optical illusion. The moon looms larger on the horizon next to trees and buildings.

The moon will come within 222,000 miles of Earth and turn full around 7:30 a.m. EDT, making it the best time to view.

As in any supermoon event, high tides are forecast because of the moon's proximity, but the effect is expected to be small.

Forget about the myths that swirl every time a supermoon appears. There's no link to higher crime or bizarre behavior. Scientists say that's just lunacy.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/super-full-moon-shines-brightly-weekend-163728260.html

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Zimmerman judge: No testimony on 911 call screams

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? The judge in the murder trial of George Zimmerman said Saturday that prosecution audio experts who point to Trayvon Martin as screaming on a 911 call moments before he was killed won't be allowed to testify at trial.

The screams are crucial pieces of evidence because they could determine who the aggressor was in the confrontation before Zimmerman fatally shot the unarmed teenager. Martin's family contends it was the teen screaming, while Zimmerman's father has said it was his son.

Judge Debra Nelson ruled that the methods used by the experts aren't reliable. But her ruling doesn't prevent the 911 calls from being played at trial.

She reached the decision after hearing arguments that stretched over several days this month on whether to allow testimony from two prosecution experts. One expert ruled out Zimmerman as the screamer and another said it was Martin. Defense experts argued there was not enough audio to determine who the screams are coming from. Zimmerman's attorneys also argued that the state experts' analysis is flawed.

Opening statements are set for Monday in the second-degree murder trial for the former neighborhood watch volunteer who says he fired on the black teenager in self-defense last year. Zimmerman is pleading not guilty.

The elimination of the audio experts will likely shorten the trial by a week. Before the ruling, attorneys had predicted the trial could last two to four weeks after opening statements.

A spokeswoman for prosecutors didn't immediately return an email Saturday.

Audio experts from both sides testified at different times during the hearing, which stretched over three weeks. Voice experts were hired by lawyers and news organizations to analyze the calls, which were made during the confrontation between the two. The experts arrived at mixed conclusions.

In deciding whether to admit the voice-recognition technology used by prosecution audio experts Tom Owen and Alan Reich, Nelson had to determine whether it is too novel or whether it has been accepted by the scientific community at-large.

"There is no evidence to establish that their scientific techniques have been tested and found reliable," the judge said in her ruling.

Owen was hired by the Orlando Sentinel last year to compare a voice sample of Zimmerman with screams for help captured on 911 calls made by neighbors. He said Zimmerman's voice doesn't match the screams. He only compared Zimmerman's voice to the 911 calls because he didn't have a voice sample for Martin at the time.

"The screams don't match at all," Owen testified during the hearing. "That's what tells me the screams aren't George Zimmerman."

Owen also testified that remarks Zimmerman made in a conversation with a police dispatcher aren't a racial slur. He testified Zimmerman said, "These f------ punks."

Reich testified in a report for prosecutors that the screams on the 911 tapes were from Martin, and the defense does not want him to testify at trial.

Reich's analysis also picked up words that other experts couldn't find. They include the words, "This shall be" from Zimmerman and "I'm begging you" from Martin.

Reich's testimony would "confuse issues, mislead the jury," the judge said.

In contrast, a British audio expert testified for the defense that it would be extremely difficult to analyze voices by comparing screaming to a normal voice.

"I've never come across a case in my 13 years where anybody's tried to compare screaming to a normal voice," said audio expert Peter French.

A second audio expert for the defense, George Doddington, also criticized prosecution experts who said Friday that screams and pleas on a 911 recording likely belonged to Martin.

"It's all ridiculous," Doddington said.

___

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower .

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/zimmerman-judge-no-testimony-911-call-screams-173730410.html

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Stars don't obliterate their planets (very often)

June 6, 2013 ? Stars have an alluring pull on planets, especially those in a class called hot Jupiters, which are gas giants that form farther from their stars before migrating inward and heating up.

Now, a new study using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope shows that hot Jupiters, despite their close-in orbits, are not regularly consumed by their stars. Instead, the planets remain in fairly stable orbits for billions of years, until the day comes when they may ultimately get eaten.

"Eventually, all hot Jupiters get closer and closer to their stars, but in this study we are showing that this process stops before the stars get too close," said Peter Plavchan of NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. "The planets mostly stabilize once their orbits become circular, whipping around their stars every few days."

The study, published recently in the Astrophysical Journal, is the first to demonstrate how the hot Jupiter planets halt their inward march on stars. Gravitational, or tidal, forces of a star circularize and stabilize a planet's orbit; when its orbit finally become circular, the migration ceases.

"When only a few hot Jupiters were known, several models could explain the observations," said Jack Lissauer, a Kepler scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, Calif., not affiliated with the study. "But finding trends in populations of these planets shows that tides, in combination with gravitational forces by often unseen planetary and stellar companions, can bring these giant planets close to their host stars."

Hot Jupiters are giant balls of gas that resemble Jupiter in mass and composition. They don't begin life under the glare of a sun, but form in the chilly outer reaches, as Jupiter did in our solar system. Ultimately, the hot Jupiter planets head in toward their stars, a relatively rare process still poorly understood.

The new study answers questions about the end of the hot Jupiters' travels, revealing what put the brakes on their migration. Previously, there were a handful of theories explaining how this might occur. One theory proposed that the star's magnetic field prevented the planets from going any farther. When a star is young, a planet-forming disk of material surrounds it. The material falls into the star -- a process astronomers call accretion -- but when it hits the magnetic bubble around it, called the magnetosphere, the material travels up and around the bubble, landing on the star from the top and bottom. This bubble could be halting migrating planets, so the theory went.

Another theory held that the planets stopped marching forward when they hit the end of the dusty portion of the planet-forming disk.

"This theory basically said that the dust road a planet travels on ends before the planet falls all the way into the star," said co-author Chris Bilinski of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "A gap forms between the star and the inner edge of its dusty disk where the planets are thought to stop their migration."

And yet a third theory, the one the researchers found to be correct, proposed that a migrating planet stops once the star's tidal forces have completed their job of circularizing its orbit.

To test these and other scenarios, the scientists looked at 126 confirmed planets and more than 2,300 candidates. The majority of the candidates and some of the known planets were identified via NASA's Kepler mission. Kepler has found planets of all sizes and types, including rocky ones that orbit where temperatures are warm enough for liquid water.

The scientists looked at how the planets' distance from their stars varied depending on the mass of the star. It turns out that the various theories explaining what stops migrating planets differ in their predictions of how the mass of a star affects the orbit of the planet. The "tidal forces" theory predicted that the hot Jupiters of more massive stars would orbit farther out, on average.

The survey results matched the "tidal forces" theory and even showed more of a correlation between massive stars and farther-out orbits than predicted.

This may be the end of the road for the mystery of what halts migrating planets, but the journey itself still poses many questions. As gas giants voyage inward, it is thought that they sometimes kick smaller, rocky planets out of the way, and with them any chance of life evolving. Lucky for us, our Jupiter did not voyage toward the sun, and our Earth was left in peace. More studies like this one will help explain these and other secrets of planetary migration.

The technical paper is online at http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/769/2/86/ .

NASA Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.

NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech manages time allocation on the Keck telescope for NASA. JPL manages NASA's Exoplanet Exploration program office. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information about the Kepler mission is at http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .

More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/F4D8N1_w9HE/130606134722.htm

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Erdogan calls for end to Turkey protest

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, waves to the crowd upon his arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, waves to the crowd upon his arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

The crowd cheers for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

The crowd cheers for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

A supporter of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds a mobile with his portrait upon his arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine wave to the crowd upon their arrival at the Ataturk Airport of Istanbul early Friday, June 7, 2013. Erdogan took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

ISTANBUL (AP) ? Turkey's prime minister took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end.

In the first extensive public show of support since anti-government protests erupted last week, more than 10,000 supporters cheered Recep Tayyip Erdogan with rapturous applause outside Istanbul's international airport.

Despite earlier comments that suggested he could be softening his stand, Erdogan delivered a fiery speech on his return from a four-day trip to North Africa. "These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now," he said.

Tens of thousands of protesters have held demonstrations that have spread to dozens of cities across Turkey, sparked by the violent police reaction last Friday to what started out as a small protest against a plan to develop Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

Since then, three people have died ? two protesters and a policeman ? and thousands have been wounded. One protester is on life support in a hospital in Ankara.

Protesters from all walks of life have occupied the square and its park, objecting to what they say is Erdogan's increasingly autocratic and arrogant manner ? charges he vehemently denies.

Turks have been awaiting Erdogan's words upon his return, seeing them as a signal of whether the demonstrations would fizzle or rage on.

Erdogan at times was almost drowned out by his supporters, part of the base that has helped him win three landslide elections. "God is Great," they chanted, and soon moved on to slogans referring specifically to the protesters in Taksim Square.

"Let us go, let us smash them," they shouted. "Istanbul is here, where are the looters?"

Erdogan had initially referred to the protesters as looters and troublemakers, while also acknowledging that excessive police force might have been used, and promising it would be investigated.

Erdogan's speech, delivered from atop an open-air bus outside the airport terminal, appeared at first to be an attempt to strike a unifying note.

"They say I am the prime minister of only 50 percent. It's not true. We have served the whole of the 76 million from the east to the west," he said, referring to his election win in 2011, when he took 50 percent of the vote.

"Together we are Turkey. Together we are brothers," he said, adding "We have never endeavored to break hearts. We are in favor of mending hearts."

But he soon became more combative.

"We have never been for building tension and polarization. But we cannot applaud brutality," he said.

In his last speech in Tunisia before flying to Istanbul, Erdogan had said that terrorist groups were involved in the protests, saying they had been identified.

In a twist, Erdogan implied that bankers were also part of a conspiracy that was fuelling the protests. He added that the flames of dissent had been fanned by other groups too.

"Those who call themselves journalists, artists, politicians, have, in a very irresponsible way, opened the way for hatred, discrimination and provocation," he said.

Speaking before Erdogan's return, Koray Caliskan, professor of political science and international relations at Bosporus University, pointed out that the prime minister was maintaining a hard line because "until now Erdogan had always gained support by increasing the tension in the country."

"Turkey is absolutely at a crossroads. Erdogan won't be able to point at Turkey as a model of democracy anymore," he said.

In his earlier comments in Tunisia, Erdogan acknowledged that some Turks were involved in the protests out of environmental concerns, and said he had "love and respect" for them.

Those comments don't appear to have swayed many of the thousands of protesters who thronged the square for a sixth day Thursday. More than 10,000 others filled a busy street in a middle class area of Ankara.

"I do not believe his sincerity," said protester Hazer Berk Buyukturca.

Turkey's main stock market revealed the fears that Erdogan's comments would do little to defuse the protesters, with the general price index plunging by 8 percent after his comments on concerns that continuing unrest would hit the country's economy.

Over the past week the demonstrations have spread to 78 cities, growing into public venting of what protesters perceive to be Erdogan's increasing arrogance. That includes attempts to impose what many say are restrictive mores on their personal lives, such as how many children to have or whether to drink alcohol.

So far, 4,300 people have been hurt or sought medical attention for the effects of tear gas during the protests, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation said. One person is on life support in Ankara.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler said more than 500 police officers had been injured. A total of 746 protests had erupted, causing some 70 million Turkish Lira ($37 million) in damages, he said. Nearly 80 protesters were still hospitalized, and almost all detained protesters had been released.

____

Fraser reported from Ankara. Ezgi Akin in Ankara contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-06-Turkey-Protests/id-35b393b2f9a8430c9f09dcea15faaf03

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