New findings from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are helping us better understand how the human big toe evolved, and when it began evolving into the valuable tool it is today. The study suggests that the big toe was the last part of the human foot to evolve.

More than 700,000,000 Rohingya fled a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state last year to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

But very few have returned, and those that have, have not been welcomed back.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says some have been tortured and thrown in jail.

There are reports of interrogations at gunpoint, and of burns and electric shock treatment designed to force confessions that they were affiliated to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a group set up, in its words, to defend Rohingya against persecution by the Myanmar government and military, who have been accused of ethnic cleansing.

HRW has stressed the need for international protection before the mainly Muslim Rohingya will be able to return to Myanmar safely.

So, will the repatriation take place? Will the governments be able to guarantee the Rohingya’s safety? And what is at stake? 

 

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Tun Khin – president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK

Phil Robertson – deputy director for the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch

Robert Templer – director of the Barcelona-based Higher Education Alliance for Refugees 

Source: Al Jazeera News

EFL live: Six matches in the Championship and two League One games – Live – BBC Sport

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Larry Nassar’s appeal of his 60-year federal sentence on child pornography charges has been denied. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling Wednesday, affirming U.S. District Judge Janet Neff’s decision to sentence Nassar to three 20-year prison terms to be served one after another. 

Nassar, a former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, received three lengthy prison sentences over an eight-week stretch starting in December, first in Neff’s federal courtroom and then in two separate Michigan county courtrooms. He had pleaded guilty to federal child pornography and state sexual assault charges. 

He appealed all three sentences, with the appeals of the state sentences still pending.

Nassar’s federal court-appointed appellate attorney filed an appeal in April, arguing that Neff erred when she used his 10 sexual assault convictions in state court, for which he had not been sentenced at the time, in calculating the sentence guideline range. Nassar’s attorney also argued that it was “procedurally unreasonable” for the federal judge to order Nassar’s state sentences to be served after the federal sentence. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, in response, argued that Neff acted within her discretion.

“In deciding to impose consecutive sentences, the district court relied on the duration, enormity, and gravity of Nassar’s criminal conduct; the serious harm that Nassar inflicted on his victims; and the serious safety threat that Nassar presents to the public,” the appeals judges wrote in their opinion. 

“… The district court agreed with the government’s observation that at least some of Nassar’s activities occurred outside of the State of Michigan, and thus at least implicitly recognized that Nassar’s state sentences for first-degree criminal sexual conduct would not account for all of his criminal behavior.”

Related: Inside the investigation and prosecution of Larry Nassar

Related: Larry Nassar and a career filled with ‘silenced’ voices

Related: How Larry Nassar abused hundreds of gymnasts and eluded justice for decades

Nassar, 55, formerly of Holt, pleaded guilty in July 2017 in federal court to three charges: obtaining and possessing child pornography and destroying computer files to hamper the investigation.

Nassar had at least 37,000 videos and images of child pornography, which the MSU Police Department found in September 2016 while executing a search of his Holt home. 

Before he was fired from MSU, he had his work laptop wiped clean. That action was the basis for the federal charge related to destroying files.

Four months after pleading guilty to the federal charges, Nassar pleaded guilty to 10 sexual assault charges split between Ingham and Eaton counties.

In January, his two sentencing hearings on those 10 charges began, first in Ingham County then in Eaton County. 

The Ingham sentencing lasted seven days and included victim-impact statements from 156 women and girls who spoke about how Nassar sexually assaulted them. The hearing drew international attention and pushed Nassar, his crimes and his victims into a spotlight not seen during the 16 months prior. 

The hearing ended with Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina telling Nassar she was signing his “death warrant” and sentencing him to 40 to 175 years in prison.

His three day sentencing hearing in Eaton County started the following week and after dozens more victim-impact statements, Judge Janice Cunningham sentenced Nassar to 40 to 125 years in prison.

Nassar has filed motions in state courts seeking new sentences. A hearing on the issue is set for Monday in Ingham County and in September in Eaton County.

Nassar sexually abused hundreds of women and girls over more than 20 years, many of them at his MSU office. In May, MSU agreed to settle lawsuits filed by hundreds of those victims for $500 million.

Nassar is currently housed at a federal transfer center in Oklahoma City, according to online records. He had been at a federal prison in Arizona, but his attorneys said in a recent court filing that he had been attacked shortly after being released into the general population. 

More:

Judge Aquilina ‘uniquely situated’ to keep Larry Nassar case, chief judge rules

Larry Nassar files for new sentencing on Eaton County sexual assault charges

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.

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John Schnatter, the disgraced founder and former CEO of Papa John’s, is asking for help.

After resigning as chairman of the board in July and being ousted from the company following reports that he used a racial slur during a May conference call, Schnatter is trying very, very hard to salvage his reputation, business, and personal brand.

It seems the former face of the pizza place has created a website called SavePapaJohns.com, which he’s now using to bypass the board and directly communicate with Papa John’s employees.

No, this is not a joke.

Upon visiting SavePapaJohns.com, you’ll see Schnatter proudly declare that he is Papa John. He then goes on to explain that he created the website because Papa John’s board wants to silence him.

“This is my website, and my way to talk to you,” he wrote, addressing employees.

Image: screengrab/savepapajohns.com

The website, which is actually pretty OK design-wise, goes on to include an About Me section that lists Schnatter’s awards and accomplishments, related press releases and news coverage, letters he’s written, and, um, his own personal legal documents?

Image: screengrab/savepapajohns.com

After watching Schnatter’s reputation go up in flames over the past few years with the reports of his racist conference call comment and other controversial moments, like the time he blamed NFL protests for a decrease in sales, many people were perplexed by the website. And it wasn’t long before they called Schnatter out.

In a recent letter to Papa John’s employees, Schnatter wrote the following:

“The Board will not let me talk to you and that has been very difficult. I can only imagine how difficult this entire situation is on you, and I’m very sorry you all have to go through this…

Recently it has come to my attention that you have been told that I want items with my image or likeness removed from the building and other Papa John’s assets. That is not the case at all. As you all know, Papa John’s is our life’s work and we will all get through this together somehow, some way.”

It was recently reported that Schnatter would be removed from all marketing materials for the company, including pizza boxes. Additionally, the University of Louisville decided to rename its Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium.

It seems the pizza place is still keeping the name Papa John’s for now, but we’ll see if Schnatter’s new website will change that.

After all, he claims he IS Papa John.

Saudi Arabia‘s public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for five human rights activists who are currently being tried by the country’s terrorism tribunal, according to rights groups.

Among the detainees is Israa al-Ghomgham, who Saudi activists say is the first woman to face capital punishment for human rights-related work. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Tuesday the charges against the activists “do not resemble recogniseable crimes” and include “incitement to protest”, “chanting slogans hostile to the regime” and “providing moral support to rioters”. 

Authorities have held the five activists, along with another not facing the death penalty, in pretrial detention without legal representation for more than two years. 

They are due to appear in court again on October 28, according to HRW.

“Any execution is appalling, but seeking the death penalty for activists like Israa al-Ghomgham, who are not even accused of violent behaviour, is monstrous,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW. 

ALQST, a UK-based group advocating for human rights in Saudi Arabia, previously reported the public prosecutor’s decision on Twitter on Sunday. 

The rights group also denied social media reports that the detainees had already been executed, saying the case was “still under review.”

URGENT NEWS:#Saudi_Arabia‘s Public Prosecutor is calling for the death penalty for #Israa_al_Ghamgham for her involvement in peaceful rights activism. The case is still under review. ALQST is calling for the charges to be dropped and for Israa to be released.

— القسط ALQST (@ALQST_ORG) August 19, 2018

A prominent activist, al-Ghomgham documented mass demonstrations in the kingdom’s Eastern Province from 2011, before being arrested along with her husband in 2015. 

Ghomgham and the other activists are being tried by Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), which was set up in 2008 to try terrorism cases and has since been used to prosecute peaceful dissidents, according to HRW.

Social reform

A deeply conservative absolute monarchy where public protests and political parties are banned, Saudi Arabia has enacted some high-profile social and economic reforms since Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in June 2017.

Bin Salman has courted Western partners to support his economic reform plan, offering billions of dollars of arms sales and promising to modernise the kingdom.

In September 2017, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud signed a royal degree lifting the ban on women driving and greater participation in the public sphere was opened up to women.

This has coincided with ongoing arrests of prominent Saudi women’s rights activists who had publicly advocated for gender equality, the right for women to drive and an end to the country’s male guardianship system, which threaten Bin Salman’s image as a reformer.

At least 13 women have been arrested since May. While a number have been released, nine remain held without charge.

“Every day, the Saudi monarchy’s unrestrained despotism makes it harder for its public relations teams to spin the fairy tale of ‘reform’ to allies and international business,” said Whitson.

“If the Crown Prince is truly serious about reform, he should immediately step in to ensure no activist is unjustly detained for his or her human-rights work”.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Well, that didn’t take long. It’s only been a week since the release of Crazy Rich Asians — the No. 1 film in the country — and Jon M. Chu’s groundbreaking rom-com already has a sequel in the works.

The news shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise for fans of Kevin Kwan’s novel of the same name. After all, there are two other books in the bestselling trilogy: China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems. Not to mention, a brief mid-credits scene starring Glee alum Harry Shum Jr. set things in motion for a sequel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Chu will return to helm the follow-up, which is currently in development at Warner Bros.

Set amidst Rachel (Constance Wu) and Nick’s (Henry Golding) lavish engagement party, the mid-credits scene finds cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan), now single, exchanging a steamy glance with her former fiancé, tech wiz Charlie Wu (Shum Jr.). It’s a short scene, but it crackles with chemistry — and if you’ve read Kwan’s book series, then you know all about Astrid and Charlie’s romance. Although Charlie and Astrid’s history was largely absent from Crazy Rich Asians, despite being a secondary plot in the book, it’s clear that Chu is saving their emotional baggage for the sequel.

In addition to new relationship drama, China Rich Girlfriend will also take the franchise to sumptuous new locations throughout mainland China, as Rachel sets off on a whirlwind journey to meet her biological father, Bao Gaoliang.

THR reports that the main cast have options in place in their contracts for sequel films and will likely return. Meanwhile, Chu is first set to helm the big-screen musical adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, which is tentatively scheduled for release in 2020.

It was no surprise when Serena Williams topped the Forbes list of highest-earning female athletes released earlier this week, but you may have not recognised the name of the woman in seventh place.

Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, more commonly known as PV Sindhu, is a 23-year-old badminton player from India and became only the second Indian competitor, male or female, to win an Olympic badminton medal with a silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Her on-court winnings last year totalled $500,000 (£387,000) but endorsements saw Sindhu bring in an extra $8m (£6.2m) in sponsorship in sports-mad India. That works out as a weekly income of $163,000 (£126,000).

That is more than earned by Simona Halep, the WTA world number one as of 22 August, and the top seed for the 2018 US Open.

Sindhu comes from a sporting background with both her parents playing volleyball at national level, but she took up badminton aged six when inspired by Pullela Gopichand, who won the men’s singles event at the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001.

Her life and career changed during the women’s singles competition at the 2016 Olympics. She was only seeded ninth but gained wins over eighth seed Tai Tzu-ying of Chinese Taipei in the last 16, China’s second seed Wang Yihan in the quarter-finals and Japan’s sixth seed Nozomi Okuhara in the semi-finals before losing to Spain’s world number one Carolina Marin in the final.

“Before the Olympics, when we reached out to sponsors, often we were asked ‘Sindhu who?’” said Tuhin Mishra – group managing director of Baseline Ventures, the company that takes care of Sindhu’s commercial interests – in an interview with CNBC in 2017.

“The market dynamics were tough. Everyone only wanted to be associated with cricket.”

India have only won 28 Olympic medals, with five of those gained by women. No Indian woman has won a gold; Sindhu was the first to earn a silver.

After her return from Rio, she received cash prizes from the different state governments and government institutions worth Rs 13 crore (130m rupees – about £1.4m), while, as a comparison, gold medallist Marin received Rs 70 lakh (7m rupees – about £77,500) from the Spanish government for her achievement.

Sindhu was also awarded land from the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana government and a luxury BMW car from the Hyderabad Badminton Association, presented by cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar.

Since then, a host of companies have been queuing up to be associated with Sindhu, with her sponsorship value matching and surpassing that of many Indian cricketers, apart from captain Virat Kohli.

Those companies on Sindhu’s sponsor roster include Bridgestone Tyres, sports drink Gatorade, pain reliever ointment Moov, online fashion store Myntra, Nokia, Panasonic, honey producer APIS Himalaya, herbal health drink firm Ojasvita and the Bank of Baroda. She is also a brand ambassador for both the Central Reserve Police Force and Vizag Steel.

“Her soaring popularity has attracted the attention of so many companies,” Mishra told The Times of India in 2016. “Even after achieving stupendous success, her humility and the value she brings to women power is remarkable.”

Success off court has also followed success on court, with silver medals at the 2017 and 2018 World Championships and an individual silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, where she also helped her country to mixed team gold.

On Thursday, she begins her campaign in the women’s singles at the Asian Games in Indonesia, where she is the third seed.

India have won one individual bronze medal in this competition – Syed Modi in the men’s singles in 1982; Sindhu is aiming to become the first Indian woman to secure an Asian Games badminton medal.

If she does, her brand value and marketability will rise further and even more companies will be looking for endorsements, As a result, she could find herself even higher up the Forbes list in 2019.

A lecture by a Harvard professor calling coconut oil “pure poison” has gone viral on YouTube, nearing 1 million views on Wednesday. 

In a talk titled “Coconut oil and other nutritional errors,” Karin Michels, who is an adjunct professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says coconut oil is not healthy, calling it “poison” at least three times in the widely-circulated video.

“I can only warn you urgently about coconut oil,” she says. “This is one of the worst foods you can eat.”

Michels is also the director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology at the University of Freiburg in Germany. 

Comments for the video, which posted in July, have been disabled. 

While coconut oil has been advertised as a health food of sorts, nutrition experts say there is little evidence to back that claim. Alice Lichtenstein, a Tufts University professor of nutrition science and policy who is vice chair of the federal government’s dietary guidelines advisory committee, recently told The New York Times “there’s virtually no data to support the hype.” 

It’s not “poison,” but American Heart Association data has shown more than 80 percent of the fat in coconut oil is saturated — far beyond butter (63 percent), beef fat (50 percent) and pork lard (39 percent). 

Donald Hensrud, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program, told USA TODAY last year that “there’s a disconnect between people’s general beliefs and what the data actually show.” He recommends instead using oils high in monounsaturated fats (including olive oil and avocado oil) and those high in polyunsaturated fats (such as canola oil). 

More: Coconut oil is out. These are the oils you should be using, experts say

The AHA, which advises against the use of coconut oil, recommends eating no more than six percent of saturated fat as part of total daily calories for those who need lower cholesterol. The oil has “no known offsetting favorable effects,” the AHA said in an advisory last year, and it could actually increase LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, a cause of cardiovascular disease.

But, saturated fat is a loaded term. While the AHA warns against it, people who cut saturated fat out of their diet might not necessarily lower their heart disease risk, a 2015 BMJ review suggested. That’s because some people fill the void with sugar, white flour and empty calories. Also, some fat is important to help bodies absorb nutrients from other foods.

Duke Behnke of The (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent contributed to this story. Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets

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The tumultuous 2017 Atlantic hurricane season proved to be one of the most active years on record, with 17 named storms and six major hurricanes. 

But it can get quite a bit stormier than that. 

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers looked at hurricane seasons dating back to 1851 and found that it’s quite unlikely any Atlantic hurricane season will surpass the 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes produced during the 2005 season, infamous for the deadly Hurricane Katrina that struck the Gulf Coast.

“To me, it makes sense that 2005 is about as many as you can get,” Phil Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University who had no role in the study, said in an interview.

Using sophisticated weather models, the research team ran over 6,000 simulations of a wide range of weather conditions — such as temperature, winds, and air pressure — that our present climate can produce. 

They found that there’s less than a 3.2 percent chance that any combination of conditions might result in more than 28 storms forming in any given year, which they took to mean 28 cyclones is pretty much the Atlantic Ocean’s maximum storm potential.

This could be useful information for both Atlantic nations and the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences’ Risk Prediction Initiative, the natural catastrophe research group that funded the study. 

But, it’s not really the number of storms that matters for people on the ground.

“At the end of the day, if you have 28 weak pieces of junk, no one cares,” said Klotzbach. “It’s the Irmas people care about.”

Last year, Hurricane Irma made landfall several times in the Caribbean, including leveling 95 percent of the structures on the island of Barbuda, before hitting Florida and causing severe flooding. 

Wind and water damage from the storm in the U.S. alone amounted to an estimated $50 billion, and, in total, Irma killed 47 people, though many more indirect deaths were reported.

It could be a quiet storm year overall, said Klotzbach, but “obviously all it takes is one or two high-profile storms to make the headlines and cause a lot of damage.”

How about future storms in a changing climate?

This study looked exclusively at what our present climate could produce in the Atlantic. 

Running sophisticated models on powerful computers has time and budget constraints, so the researchers restricted their research to the present.

“Of course, future climate is very important to consider,” Sally Lavender, the study’s lead author and researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research, said over email.

Yet, a changing climate doesn’t necessarily mean more hurricanes, like it does more heat waves and wildfires.

“Based on work by others it is not at all clear if we could expect an increase in the numbers of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic,” said Lavender. 

Klotzbach agrees. 

“Most models don’t show the number of storms increasing,” said Klotzbach. “In general, the number of storms is probably not going to change that much.”

Still, future storms may carry more water, noted Klotzbach, or they may bring stronger winds, said Lavender. 

There’s also strong evidence that storms are slowing down, which would mean considerably more flooding and destruction over the unlucky regions the storms stall over. 

Even so, Klotzbach emphasized that we might as well focus on preparing for what could happen today. 

In the 1940s, for example, five Category 4 and 5 storms (the highest rated storms) pummeled Florida over the course of six years. And with coastal development and massive population increases since then, we’re not prepared to deal with that sort of storm onslaught, said Klotzbach.

“We’re not prepared for what we have now,” he said. “When Category 5’s start hitting Florida again, it’s going to be bad.”