Russian Helicopter Crashes

Russian Helicopter Crashes, A Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter crashed in Syria near Homs, killing two Russian servicemen. Russian officials said the cause of the crash is being investigated but that the helicopter was not shot down. The helicopter is part of a new deployment of advanced military hardware that Russia has sent to its bases in Syria, despite a drawdown announced last month.

The Assad regime will hold parliamentary elections beginning tomorrow, ahead of the resumption of peace talks. Opposition groups have dismissed the elections as illegitimate. “I don’t know how they can really announce an election in Syria. In Idlib or in Aleppo or in Deir al-Zor or in Homs, can people go there and vote?” an opposition spokesman said. Over the weekend, Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaki said the regime is preparing an offensive to retake rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, a move that would collapse the partial ceasefire.

Kepler Telescope Recovered

Kepler Telescope Recovered, The Kepler space telescope is now “stable,” according to ABC News, following an alarming discovery last week that found the planet-hunting probe had slipped into emergency mode, putting a planned science mission in jeopardy.

“On Sunday morning, the spacecraft reached a stable state with the communication antenna pointed toward Earth, enabling telemetry and historical event data to be downloaded to the ground. The spacecraft is operating in its lowest fuel-burn mode,” Charlie Sobeck, Kepler mission manager, said in a NASA update posted online Tuesday.

The space telescope, which has been an effective planet hunter for NASA, had gone into emergency mode some 75 million miles away from Earth, the space agency reported Friday.

Mission operations engineers discovered on Thursday that the spacecraft was in emergency mode while conducting a routine, scheduled contact with the telescope.

“(Emergency mode) is the lowest operational mode and is fuel intensive,” Charlie Sobeck, the Kepler and K2 mission manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said in a statement. “Recovering from EM is the team’s priority at this time.”

NASA said that it appeared the space telescope went into emergency mode last week, before mission operations started pointing it toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

“The last regular contact with the spacecraft was on April 4,” Sobeck wrote for NASA. “The spacecraft was in good health and operating as expected. Kepler completed its prime mission in 2012, detecting nearly 5,000 exoplanets, of which, more than 1,000 have been confirmed.”

Just last month, NASA praised the success of the telescope in connection with the conclusion of its K2 mission. It now continues to search for exoplanets while studying young stars, supernovae, and other space objects.

“The spacecraft has operated beautifully, with scarcely a whiff of trouble,” NASA said in a March statement. “As part of our K2 mission strategy, we’ve relaxed the fault or sensitivity limits and taken on a bit more risk so that we wouldn’t have to interrupt the observing to correct minor issues.”

Forbes magazine wrote that Kepler was launched in 2009 for an original three-year mission. Along with detecting nearly 5,000 exoplanets, 12 are roughly the same mass as Earth and near a star’s habitable zone.

CDC Zika Virus Scarier Than We Thought

CDC Zika Virus Scarier Than We Thought, Public health officials used their strongest language to date in warning about a Zika outbreak in the United States, as the Obama administration lobbied Congress for $1.9 billion to combat the mosquito-borne virus.

“Most of what we’ve learned is not reassuring,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought.”

As summer approaches, officials are warning that mosquito eradication efforts, lab tests and vaccine research may not be able to catch up. There are 346 cases of Zika confirmed in the continental United States – all in people who had recently traveled to Zika-prone countries, according to the most recent CDC report. Of those, 32 were in pregnant women, and seven were sexually transmitted.

But in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa, the virus is now being transmitted locally. Of the 354 cases in the territories, only three are travel-related, and 37 involved pregnant women.

Schuchat said the virus has been linked to a broader array of birth defects throughout a longer period of pregnancy, including premature birth and blindness in addition to the smaller brain size caused by microcephaly. The potential geographic range of the mosquitoes transmitting the virus also reaches farther northward, with the Aedes aegypti species present in all or part of 30 states, not just 12. And it can be spread sexually, causing the CDC to update its guidance to couples.

And researchers still don’t know how many babies of women infected with Zika will end up with birth defects, or what drugs and vaccines may be effective.

“This is a very unusual virus that we can’t pretend to know everything about it that we need to know,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I’m not an alarmist and most of you who know me know that I am not, but the more we learn about the neurological aspects, the more we look around and say this is very serious.”

That assessment, delivered to reporters at the White House on Monday, comes the week after the White House informed Congress it was moving more than $510 million previously earmarked to combat Ebola in Africa with Zika prevention efforts closer to home.

“What I’ve done is take money from other areas of non-Zika research to start. We couldn’t just stop and wait for the money,” Fauci said. “When the president asked for $1.9 billion, we needed $1.9 billion.”

Diabetes Here I Come Starbucks

Diabetes Here I Come Starbucks, A Florida Starbucks customer is steamed up about a recent drink order he claims triggered painful family memories.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Action News JAX that he ordered a Grande White Mocha last week from a St. Augustine Starbucks.

When he received his beverage, a note that read “Diabetes Here I come” was typed on the side of the order. The customer says diabetes is no laughing matter.

“That first word just automatically brought the picture of both of my sisters to my head,” said the customer, who says his two sisters suffer from type 1 diabetes.

A @Starbucks customer tells me he’s hurt by the message he received on his coffee cup. Details on @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/hNMeC6ysRJ

– Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) April 8, 2016

“Seeing and knowing the struggle my sisters went through since third, fourth grade, it definitely struck a nerve.”

The customer shared a picture of his order with the station, who took it to store manager Kent Miller. Miller immediately denounced the message and said his store doesn’t condone that kind of behavior.

Starbucks has come under fire in the past for its sugary, calorie-laden drinks. A 16 oz. white mocha has 470 calories-more than a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s-but Miller says baristas should only be labeling beverages with the drink type and customer name.

The customer who received the diabetes note says he doesn’t need an apology from the coffee chain but does hope to prevent a similar incident from happening to other customers in the future. He did, however, leave a message for the barista who wrote the offensive note.

On the same cup he wrote, “2 of my sisters are diabetic, so … not funny.”

This @Starbucks customer tells me he wants the #Starbucks employee to know his sisters suffer from Type 1 diabetes. pic.twitter.com/lzmeAwLLdm

– Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) April 8, 2016

Starbucks said in a statement that it’s still trying to offer that customer a direct apology and it’s working to ensure the incident will not be repeated: “We strive to provide an inclusive and positive experience for our customers, and we’re disappointed to learn of this incident. We are working directly with the customer to apologize for his experience, and with our partners (employees) to ensure this does not happen again.”

Floods In Pakistan Kill 55

Floods In Pakistan Kill 55, Floods in Pakistan have killed at least 55 people as rescuers continue to try and help thousands of survivors, including some cut off by a landslide in a mountain valley, Reuters reported.

The weather system that brought the unusually heavy rain was expected to move northeast, towards northern India, although more isolated storms were expected in northern Pakistan, the Meteorological Department said.

Yousuf Zia, a disaster management official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said nearly 150 homes had been destroyed and tents and blankets were being distributed to the homeless.

“There are 30 people stranded by a landslide in the Kohistan Valley where we have sent a helicopter to rescue them,” Zia said.

Forty-seven people were killed and 37 injured in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Zia said, while eight people were killed in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, officials there said.

Landslides caused widespread damage to roads and communication infrastructure in the Pakistani side of Kashmir, they said.

One of the worst-affected districts was the Swat Valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad, where 121 mm (4.76 inches) of rain fell on Sunday, the Meteorological Department said.

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