Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 767
May 27, 2016
5 superfoods you’re probably not eating
By some estimates, the state of American health looks pretty grim. And much of it is directly tied to poor diets.
Based on current trends, one in three American adults—about 146 million people—will be suffering from type 2 diabetes by 2050, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That year, say researchers at Harvard University, 42 percent of Americans will be obese, up from the current figure of 35 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that in 2000, partially because of a surge in meat consumption, the average American ate almost 20 percent more calories than he did in 1983.
The problem isn’t only that we’re eating too much, but that we’re eating a lot of bad stuff: According to the CDC, more than 11 percent of the American diet comes from fast food. Could the gloomy 2050 predictions be averted? A hopeful sign is the growing interest in healthy diets, and in particular, superfoods. New research by Mintel, a market research firm, has found that between 2011 and 2015, the number of new food and drink products to hit the marketplace containing the terms “superfood,” “superfruit” or “supergrain” increased more than 200 percent worldwide. Just a cursory glance at your local Whole Foods will give you a sense of how ubiquitous the word has become to sell various foods and drinks.
And while the term superfood has been used aggressively as a marketing tactic, it’s a real concept. The Oxford Dictionary defines a superfood as “a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being.” But that doesn’t mean superfoods should be treated as panaceas. While Cancer Research UK points out that superfoods are often marketed as having the power to prevent or even cure various diseases and ailments, it warns that consumers “shouldn’t rely on so-called ‘superfoods’ to reduce the risk of cancer. They cannot substitute for a generally healthy and balanced diet.” But that doesn’t mean they can’t be a part of a healthy and balanced diet.
Interested in making the most of what you eat? Try including these five “superfoods” in your diet. (And as with any change in diet, check with your doctor before trying anything new.)
1. Moringa
What has more protein than yogurt, more calcium than milk, more B vitamins than peanuts, more potassium than bananas, and more vitamin A than carrots? Moringa.
People in Africa and Asia have long known the health properties of moringa, a tree whose seed pods taste like a sweeter version of green beans and whose leaves have a peppery flavor. “In India, we call moringa the drumstick tree, for its long, drumstick-like seed pods,” writes Maanvi Singh on NPR.org. “It’s easy to come by in Mumbai, where I grew up. My mother would use the young, tender pods to make this amazing lentil stew called sambhar.”
Packed with protein and phytochemicals (compounds that may reduce the risk of chronic disease), moringa also has all eight essential amino acids. And while there’s also compelling evidence that moringa can help diabetes and function as an anti-carcinogen, Singh points out that the current research is preliminary.
Still, the plant punches way above its weight in nutrients. “Milligram for milligram, it outperforms many of the classic sources of vitamins and minerals by multiples, such as 25 times the amount of iron as spinach or seven times the amount of vitamin C as oranges,” writes Jonathon Engles, a food writer and eco-gardener who first discovered it in Guatemala, where it is being used to fight malnutrition.
If you can’t find moringa locally, buy it online, but be sure to look for the responsibly sourced, fair-trade variety. But the best option is simply to grow your own. If you live in USDA Hardiness Zones 9, 10 or 11, you can easily grow moringa trees. And next time you go camping, you might want to bring some dried moringa seeds with you: Just a few crushed up seeds can purify a bottle of contaminated water.
Here’s an easy recipe to try: Moringa pizza.
2. Turmeric
Google searches for turmeric have surged by 300 percent over the last five years, according to the company’s 2016 Food Trends Report. In fact, turmeric latte (aka “Golden milk), a drink made of juiced turmeric root and nut milk that is fast becoming a cultish, healthy alternative to coffee, may be 2016’s drink of choice, notes Saba Imtiaz of the Guardian. She adds, “Turmeric lattes are now being sold at cafes from Sydney to San Francisco, and the drink is gaining fans in the UK.”
A member of the ginger family whose root is widely used as an ingredient in medicines, turmeric is a superfood that has many health properties. Since ancient times, turmeric has been used to fight inflammation, a power given to it by the compound curcumin, which has been found to inhibit several molecules that play a role in inflammation in human clinical trials.
It has also been used to treat a wide number of ailments, including arthritis, heartburn, ulcerative colitis, diarrhea, high cholesterol, headaches, bronchitis, fibromyalgia and depression. Curcumin may also help fight cancer, as its antioxidants may help prevent free radicals from damaging cellular DNA.
The fact that its wide-ranging health properties may be used as a potential treatment for a number of afflictions common to older people means that turmeric isn’t just a hipster fad. “Turmeric has potential as an ingredient in supplements and functional food and drink products, particularly within products aimed at the growing senior population,” says Stephanie Mattucci, a global food science analyst at Mintel.
A 2012 study backs up her view. Researchers described three patients with Alzheimer’s disease whose behavioral symptoms were “improved remarkably” after consuming 764 milligrams of turmeric for 12 weeks. The researchers concluded that turmeric is “effective and safe” for the treatment of the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease patients.
“After bubbling under the surface for many years, with those of us immersed in the world of curcumin saying ‘any minute now,’ it finally broke into the mainstream in a big way two years ago,” wrote Shaheen Majeed in Natural Products Insider in December. “We believe it was propelled by an overwhelming growth in the body of science on its safety and efficacy.”
Generating more than $20 million in revenue in 2014, curcumin is the top-ranking natural herbal supplement. (As a dietary supplement, curcumin extracts are generally preferred, since in its raw state, turmeric has low bioavailability.)
Here’s an easy recipe to get your turmeric on: Iced turmeric latte.
3. Aronia
Native to the Great Lakes region and northeastern U.S., aronia (aka chokeberry) have been used in many food products, from jam, salsa and syrup to ice cream, beer and wine. But this dark, sour berry that has long been prized by Native Americans as a miracle fruit has emerged as a potent superfood.
The primary reason is its high anthocyanin content. A class of over 600 naturally occurring plant pigments, anthocyanins, a type of phytochemical, confer a dark red or purple color to many fruits and vegetables, such as purple berries, red grapes, eggplant and purple corn. There is a growing body of evidence of anthocyanins’ wide-ranging health benefits.
“Based upon many cell-line studies, animal models, and human clinical trials, it has been suggested that anthocyanins possess anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic activity, cardiovascular disease prevention, obesity control and diabetes alleviation properties, all of which are more or less associated with their potent antioxidant property,” according to a 2010 Ohio State University study.
While anthocyanins are present in all those purple fruits and vegetables, none contain nearly as much as aronia. According to USDA figures, aronia has 2,147 milligrams of anthocyanin per 100 grams of berry. That outperforms the second-place elderberry (1,993 mg), as well as eggplant (750 mg), blackberries (353 mg), Concord grapes (192 mg) and red cabbage (113 mg).
If you live in USDA Hardiness Zone 3, you can grow your own and eat them right off the bush. But they’re also perfect in smoothies. Here’s a video on how to make one:
4. Mung Beans
A popular food in India, China and Southeast Asia, the mung bean has a nutty, sweet flavor that complements sweet and savory dishes. While they are packed with potassium, iron, magnesium and fiber, it’s the protein content that is amazing: 24 percent. It’s no surprise that they are popular, even for breakfast, in India, where 40 percent of the population is vegetarian.
While most other legumes lose their vitamin C content after cooking, mung beans retain most of it. Also, studies have shown that fermented mung bean extracts can help lower bad cholesterol levels and also blood sugar levels, which is good news for diabetics.
And there’s more: A 2012 study showed that mung beans have the ability to suppress the growth of cancer cells in the liver and cervix. A 2005 study revealed that mung beans have antifungal properties as well.
“Sprout mung beans overnight (using a simple sprouting vessel) and eat over rice,” suggests Rich Roll, a vegan athlete who Men’s Fitness Magazine dubbed one of the “25 Fittest Men in the World.”
“Alternatively, you can make a broth with turmeric or even brew a coffee-like drink in a French press with nutritional yeast,” he writes.
Learn how to grow mung bean sprouts at home with this video:
5. Maple Syrup
It was hiding in plain sight all along. An American kitchen staple, maple syrup is now being hailed as a superfood because it contains anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory compounds that can also help manage type 2 diabetes. As a recent Daily Mail headline heralded, “Maple syrup joins the ranks of broccoli and blueberries as new ‘one-stop shop’ superfood.”
While you might eat it with pancakes, new research suggests you should be eating it a lot more. “We don’t know yet whether the new compounds contribute to the healthy profile of maple syrup,” said Navindra Seeram, who led the research at the University of Rhode Island. “But we do know that the sheer quantity and variety of identified compounds with documented health benefits qualifies maple syrup as a champion food.”
The finding puts maple syrup alongside such known superfoods as berries, red wine (in moderation), tea and flaxseed.
“We found a wide variety of polyphenols in maple syrup,” said Seeram. “We discovered that the polyphenols in maple syrup inhibit enzymes that are involved in the conversion of carbohydrate to sugar. In fact, in preliminary studies, maple syrup had a greater enzyme-inhibiting effect compared to several other healthy plant foods such as berries.”
Here are 11 new ways to ways to include maple syrup in your diet.
Do you have any superfood recommendations or recipes? Share them in the comments.
May 26, 2016
Search for California teen girl goes on after suspect killed
SOLVANG, Calif. (AP) — Authorities were searching across a wide area in California for a teenage girl with hopes of finding her alive after the man suspected of abducting her was killed in a shootout with deputies.
Fernando Castro, 19, whose car had been the subject of an Amber Alert for 15-year-old Pearl Pinson, exchanged gunfire with deputies at a Santa Barbara County mobile home park Thursday about 300 miles south of where she was taken a day earlier, Solano County Sheriff Thomas Ferrara said.
Pinson had still not been found several hours after the shootout, Ferrara said. Authorities have been frantically searching for her since a witness reported hearing a girl screaming for help as a man dragged her across a freeway overpass in Vallejo on Wednesday morning.
“We continue our search, and we hope to find her alive,” Ferrara said.
Authorities described the two teens as acquaintances, but emphasized that they believe Pinson was taken unwillingly.
The search was set to continue through the night with an expanded search resuming Friday morning.
The sheriff’s department said Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputies spotted the gold Saturn sedan Castro had been seen driving in Vallejo about 300 miles south late Thursday afternoon.
When the deputies pursued the car, the driver shot at them, stopped, got out and then fled into a mobile home in the town of Solvang, where he briefly barricaded himself inside and a woman who was inside safely got out, a Santa Barbara County sheriff’s statement said.
He then stole a gray pickup truck from the mobile home and exchanged fire again with deputies before he was shot and killed, authorities said.
Authorities feared Pinson was in grave danger based on what the witness told deputies transpired on the pedestrian overpass on Wednesday.
The witness reported seeing a girl with a bleeding face pleading for someone to help her as a man armed with a handgun pulled her along. Officials say the witness ran for assistance and heard a gunshot.
Deputies found what appeared to be blood and Pinson’s cellphone on the overpass, and she has not been seen since.
The California Highway Patrol issued the Amber Alert on Thursday asking motorists to be on the lookout for a gold 1997 Saturn sedan in which Solano County authorities think the girl was transported.
Closing arguments next in ‘Shield’ actor’s murder trial
FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2012 file photo, actor Michael Jace appears in Los Angeles. Jace's 10-year-old son testified, Wednesday, May 25, 2016, that he heard his father tell his mother that she should run to heaven before shooting her twice. The actor best known for playing a police officer on the FX series "The Shield" is charged with shooting his wife to death in their Los Angeles home on May 19, 2014 and faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File) (Credit: AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled on Friday in the murder trial of Michel Jace, who played a police officer on television, with dueling portrayals of the actor presented to a jury.
Is Jace a calculating killer, who shot his wife in the back and then in the legs after taunting her about her love of running? Or was the actor, distraught over the impending end of his marriage of nine years, so distraught that he shot and killed his wife April in the heat of passion?
A jury of six men and six women will have to decide after hearing closing arguments whether to convict “The Shield” actor of first-degree murder, or choose a lesser charge such as voluntary manslaughter.
Jace acknowledges he shot and killed his wife on May 19, 2014, in their Los Angeles home. He waited for police after calling 911 and gave a lengthy interview to detectives in which he told them he wanted to inflict pain on April Jace and planned to shoot her in the leg with her father’s revolver.
Instead, Jace shot her three times and fired two shots into her legs in a hallway within sight of their young sons, who were ages 5 and 8 at the time.
Jace’s now 10-year-old son testified Wednesday that he heard his father tell his mother, “‘If you like running, then run to heaven.'”
Michael Jace, who had small roles in films such as “Boogie Nights,” ”Forrest Gump” and the television show “Southland,” had been out of work for years and financial struggles put a strain on their marriage.
April Jace, who earlier that day had told her husband she wanted a divorce, was killed moments after returning to their home after a youth baseball game. Text messages presented during the trial show Michael Jace had told his wife he had left their home, but instead was waiting with the loaded handgun.
He told detectives he planned to kill himself, but couldn’t follow through. He also said he shot his wife the first time after she lunged at him.
“I was just angry,” Michael Jace told investigators, according to a transcript released Thursday. “All I intended to do was shoot her in the leg. And then I shot her in the leg and that was it.”
In opening statements, Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef portrayed Jace as a calculating killer.
“You will hear that on May 19, 2014, the defendant took a loaded gun, a revolver, and waited for his wife to come home and then shot her in the back and then shot her two more times in front of their kids,” Mokayef told jurors.
Jace’s attorney Jamon Hicks called the case tragic in opening statements Tuesday that case boiled down to the actor’s mindset at the time of the killing, and whether it was premeditated. “This case is not about how it was done. We acknowledge it. We accept responsibility,” Hicks said. “This case is about why it was done.”
If convicted of first-degree murder, Jace faces 50 years to life in prison.
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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
Trump shifts to Clinton after claiming GOP delegate majority
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Presidential candidate Donald Trump, armed at last with a majority of the Republican Party’s delegates, is celebrating by shifting his attention toward the general election while his likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, remains locked in a divisive primary contest.
“Here I am watching Hillary fight, and she can’t close the deal,” Trump crowed Thursday during an appearance in North Dakota. “We’ve had tremendous support from almost everybody.”
Trump’s good news was tempered by ongoing internal problems, including the sudden departure of his political director and continuing resistance by many Republican leaders to declaring their support for his outsider candidacy.
At the same time, Clinton faced fresh questions about her use of a private email server while secretary of state, even as she fought to pivot toward Trump, who she warned would take the country “backward on every issue and value we care about.”
Campaigning before union workers in Las Vegas, she decried Trump’s anti-union comments and his proposal to deport millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. She said he is an “unqualified loose cannon” who should never be president.
Complicating her election challenge, Clinton’s Democratic rival Bernie Sanders embraced the possibility of a one-on-one debate with Trump. The Republican said he’d “love to debate Bernie,” but would want the debate to raise at least $10 million for charity.
Just 75 delegates short of her own delegate majority, Clinton remains on a path to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, according to an Associated Press count. But Trump got there first.
The New York businessman sealed the majority by claiming a small number of the party’s unbound delegates who told The Associated Press they would support him at the national convention in July. Among them was Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard.
“I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn’t like where our country is,” Pollard said. “I have no problem supporting Mr. Trump.”
It takes 1,237 delegates to win the Republican nomination. Trump has reached 1,239 and will easily pad his total in primary elections on June 7.
At a rally in Billings, Montana, Trump offered new specifics on his general election strategy.
“What I’m going to do is I want to focus on 15-or-so states,” he said, that could go “either way.” Among those he mentioned: the Democratic bastions of California and New York, which he insists he can put into play.
Trump said during a news conference Thursday that he would “absolutely” end his habit of attacking fellow Republicans now that the nomination is effectively his. But that truce appeared to be short-lived.
Speaking later at the Billings rally, Trump said 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who has refused to endorse him, had “failed so badly.” His campaign also released a celebratory Instagram video that features a montage of former rivals, including Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, saying he would never be the party’s nominee.
Trump’s pivotal moment comes amid a new sign of internal problems.
Hours before clinching the nomination, he announced the departure of political director Rick Wiley, who was leading the campaign’s push to hire staff in key battleground states. In a statement, Trump’s campaign said Wiley had been hired only until the candidate’s organization “was running full steam.”
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Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Washington, James Nord in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, James MacPherson in Bismarck, North Dakota, Lisa Lerer in Las Vegas, Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, Iowa, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
Colorado governor’s book raises Clinton veep speculation
DENVER (AP) — John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s term-limited Democratic governor, released a candid autobiography and is doing the book talk rounds this week, reviving speculation that he is positioning himself to join Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign ticket.
Hickenlooper insists he hasn’t been approached by Clinton’s camp, and he uses self-deprecating humor to deflect queries about his ambitions. But his name has come up before.
“Everyone says I’m on the short list,” he said recently. “I think it’s probably a long list; I’m probably closer to the bottom.”
Hickenlooper is one of few Democratic governors who survived off-year Democratic routs over the past eight years. Virginia U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine is usually cited as a top candidate for vice president, along with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Another name being floated is Ken Salazar, the former U.S. interior secretary and U.S. senator from Colorado.
Because of the primary challenge from Clinton’s left flank posed by Bernie Sanders, there has been increased speculation she will turn to a Senate liberal for her vice president, like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Both, however, hail from states where GOP governors would be able to appoint their replacement.
Yet both Democrats and Republicans in Colorado, a key presidential swing state, say a Clinton-Hickenlooper fit makes sense.
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OIL TO BEER TO POLITICS
Laid off as an oil and gas geologist during a 1980s bust, Hickenlooper founded a brewpub in 1988 that helped trigger the transformation of Denver’s gritty downtown warehouse district. The tireless civic booster was elected mayor in his first try at political office, re-elected, and helped bring the 2008 Democratic National Convention to Denver.
In 2010, Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter told Hickenlooper he wouldn’t seek re-election and encouraged him to run. Hickenlooper did and beat a splintered Republican Party. Four years later, Hickenlooper narrowly defeated former Rep. Bob Beauprez in 2014’s GOP-dominant election.
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WHY HE’D FIT
— Colorado is crucial to victory in November. Hickenlooper’s idiosyncratic humor and plain talk could boost Clinton’s favorability ratings among voters. Clinton “needs to find someone who’s likable, and John Hickenlooper’s definitely likable,” said Owen Loftus, a Republican campaign adviser.
— On divisive issues like guns and energy, Hickenlooper seeks consensus rather than confrontation.
Mike Stratton, a Democratic strategist in Denver, said Hickenlooper’s record of bipartisan problem-solving makes him an appealing vice presidential candidate. “That kind of thing is at a premium everywhere in the country,” Stratton said. “Obviously someone from the West helps balance the ticket.”
— Hickenlooper has overseen a growing economy with unemployment at 3.1 percent, compared with 9.1 percent when he took office. Bill Cadman, state senate GOP majority leader, calls him a “great marketing director for the state.”
— Hickenlooper reluctantly accepted voters’ decision to create the nation’s first recreational pot industry but insisted it be tightly regulated.
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WHY NOT
— Hickenlooper is a friend of fracking, the gas-drilling procedure some Democrats find dangerous. Clinton alienated many by saying she’d put coal miners out of work.
“It’s religion in the Democratic Party to oppose fracking, and I can see him having problems with the party’s more liberal elements,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and political consultant.
— Hickenlooper was widely criticized in 2013 for granting an indefinite execution reprieve to a man who shot and killed four people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The governor said he wanted to put off a decision on the man’s execution until another governor took office, a delay that struck both death-penalty supporters and opponents as cowardly.
— He’s yet to find a solution with tax-averse Colorado Republicans to help Colorado’s underfunded schools. In 2013, voters overwhelmingly rejected his plan for a $1 billion income tax increase for schools.
— Hickenlooper threw his weight in 2013 into the passage of universal background checks and gun magazine limits, something that could endear him to Democrats but infuriate Republicans already incensed at Clinton’s gun control stance.
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‘COLORADO DOES NOT QUIT’
Coloradans’ response to a series of disasters inspired the title of his book, “The Opposite of Woe,” subtitled, “My Life in Beer and Politics.”
In 2012, Colorado suffered the most destructive wildfires in state history and the Aurora theater shootings, in which James Holmes opened fire at a “Batman” movie, killing 12 people and wounding 70. The next year brought the assassination by an ex-felon of Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements, epic flooding that displaced thousands, and a high school shooting in which a student killed a classmate before taking his own life.
“Colorado does not quit,” Hickenlooper writes. “What we showed the world is that Colorado is the opposite of woe.”
Hickenlooper’s self-portrait includes using pot as a teen and taking a nude selfie in a (filled) bathtub. He comes off as both bullied and rebellious as a youth. He kept his attempts to rescue his first marriage to the writer Helen Thorpe and his courtship of his second spouse, Robin Pringle, out of the public eye.
“It’s certainly not the portrait of someone who’s trying to prepare themselves to be a vice presidential candidate,” Hickenlooper told reporters this week.
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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.
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James Anderson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jandersonap. Kristen Wyatt can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt
Dump Trump? Some millennials aren’t so sure
COSTA MESA, Calif. (AP) — Most polls show Bernie Sanders is the overwhelming favorite of millennials — voters between the ages of 18 and 35. But some young voters are taking a serious look at Donald Trump as the primary season rolls on.
Twenty-five percent of people under 30 in a Harvard Institute of Politics poll say they would vote for Trump if he faced off against Hillary Clinton in the fall.
Sanders still has the clear advantage among millennials. The same Harvard poll shows 80 percent of young people with a very favorable opinion of Sanders would vote for Clinton if he drops out.
But many young voters are united in their anger and disillusionment, and both Trump and Sanders have tapped into that subset of voters.
Online dance craze sweeps police departments across US
In this undated frame from video provided by the Los Angeles Police Department, LAPD officers and others dance beneath the iconic Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles. In a now-viral sensation, police officers across the U.S. are dancing an updated version of the running man to a catchy 1990s hip hop song, "My Boo" by Ghost Town DJ's, in videos that have included professional sports mascots, cheerleading squads and at least one explosion. The videos started with the New York Police Department and are getting more elaborate and popular, with even some police chiefs joining in. (Los Angeles Police Department via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT (Credit: AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In an online sensation, police officers across the U.S. are dancing an updated version of the running man to a catchy 1990s hip hop song in videos that have included professional sports mascots, cheerleading squads and at least one explosion.
The videos, set to “My Boo” by Ghost Town DJ’s, began in early May after police in New Zealand issued the Running Man Challenge to the New York Police Department. The meme started with two teenagers in New Jersey and became viral after college basketball teams picked it up.
The police videos posted on the Internet have been steadily getting more elaborate and more popular, with even some police chiefs joining in.
Los Angeles officers filmed themselves dancing inside the Dodgers baseball stadium and at a popular hiking spot in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. Detroit officers did their dance after spilling out of a heavy-duty SWAT truck in front of a General Motors building, and Miami’s men and women in blue threw in some salsa moves to Gloria Estefan’s “Conga.”
The videos are about more than officers cutting loose. They come as police departments across the U.S. are facing increased scrutiny and public criticism in the wake of a series of officer-involved deaths of young, unarmed black people.
Many departments have been working to become more community-friendly and improve their image. That includes turning to the power of social media.
“Across this nation, there’s a lot of anti-police rhetoric,” Detroit police Chief James Craig told reporters this week. “Do you believe this might have a profound impact on reducing that? I mean, you talk about how many shares so far? People like it, they appreciate it, and this is a move in the right direction.”
In his department’s video, one of the most popular with seven million views since Tuesday, Craig busted moves underneath the city’s iconic Joe Louis fist. In a move parodying a mic drop, Craig then dropped a police belt and challenged Chicago, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, Ohio. He has also challenged New York and Los Angeles, indicating their videos aren’t good enough.
Police departments are smart to take on the challenge, said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor and a leading authority on American pop culture.
“This is a rhetorical act of public relations. No question about it,” he said. “Having the police force, uniformed police especially, smiling and dancing with people within the context of these communities, is certainly a positive message.
“It’s what a Coca Cola ad does, what a propaganda film does, what a public relations campaign does — try to make us think differently about something,” he said.
The videos have drawn criticism from some who question the use of police resources. Mostly, the response has been positive.
“Just when I thought my faith in the police was over,” Los Angeles resident Trayvon Walker commented on the LAPD’s video. “They do a video like this that puts a smile on my face and makes me look at them and say, ‘They’re not so bad of people after all.'”
As a young, black man, Walker said he has experienced police discrimination and his view of officers has eroded in recent years. But he said the video reminded him that there are plenty of good cops.
“It doesn’t change my perception of the police, but I do think more of them in the community doing positive things will lead to more positive outcomes,” the 29-year-old court clerk said in a phone interview. “To be able to see LAPD, or just police in general, doing something that is good for our community — it’s pleasant to see.”
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Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/amanda....
Origin of key Clinton emails from report are a mystery
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since her use of a private email server was made public last year, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has insisted she turned over all work-related emails to the State Department to be released to the public.
But after 14 months of public scrutiny and the release of tens of thousands of emails, an agency watchdog’s discovery of at least three previously undisclosed emails has renewed concerns that Clinton was not completely forthcoming when she turned over a trove of 55,000 pages of emails. And the revelation has spawned fresh criticism from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The three messages — which appear to have been found among electronic files of four former top Clinton State Department aides — included Clinton’s own explanation of why she wanted her emails kept private. In a November 2010, email, Clinton worried that her personal messages could become accessible to outsiders.
Two other messages a year later divulged possible security weaknesses in the home email system she used while secretary of state. The Clinton campaign has previously denied that her home server was compromised.
On Thursday, Clinton, who has called her use of a private email server “a mistake,” said she had been forthcoming with her personal emails and said she believed her use of a private email account was allowed.
“I have provided all of my work-related emails, and I’ve asked that they be made public, and I think that demonstrates that I wanted to make sure that this information was part of the official records,” Clinton said, according to an interview transcript provided by ABC News.
Most of Clinton’s emails have been made public by the State Department over the past year due to both a court order and Clinton’s willingness to turn them over. But hundreds were censored for national security reasons and 22 emails were completely withheld because the agency said they contained top secret material — a matter now under investigation by the FBI.
Clinton said in March 2015 that she would turn over all work-related emails to the State Department after removing private messages that contained personal and family material. “No one wants their personal emails made public and I think most people understand that and respect their privacy,” she said after her exclusive use of private emails to conduct State Department business was confirmed by media reports.
Senate investigators have asked for numerous emails about Clinton’s server as part of their own inquiry into Clinton’s email practices in recent months, but they didn’t get copies of key messages made public by the State Department’s own watchdog this week, a senior Republican senator said Thursday.
“It is disturbing that the State Department knew it had emails like this and turned them over to the inspector general, but not to Congress,” said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee that’s been probing Clinton’s use of a private server.
The emails appear to contain work-related passages, raising questions about why they were not turned over to the State Department last year. The inspector general noted that Clinton’s production of work-related emails was “incomplete,” missing not only the three emails but numerous others covering Clinton’s first four months in office.
The inspector general also found Clinton’s email set up violated agency policies and could have left sensitive government information vulnerable. It also complicated federal archiving of her emails, in turn making it more difficult to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Act.
On Thursday, Clinton told ABC News her use of the personal email was “allowed,” saying that “the rules have been clarified since I left.” In a later interview Thursday with CNN, Clinton said she “believed it was allowed.”
A spokesman for the Clinton campaign did not respond to emailed questions Thursday. An inspector general’s spokesman declined to discuss the report.
The report said the inspector general was able to reconstruct some of Clinton’s missing emails by searching the email files of four former Clinton aides who had turned over thousands of pages of communications in 2015 at the request of the State Department, which is defending itself in multiple public records lawsuits, including one filed by The Associated Press. The four aides who turned over those files, according to the report, were Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and top aides Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines.
Abedin was the aide who authored the key email in November 2010 that provoked Clinton’s concerns about outsiders obtaining her personal emails. After the State Department’s computer spam filters apparently prevented Clinton from sending a message to all department employees from her private server, Abedin suggested that she either open an official agency email or make her private address available to the agency.
Clinton told Abedin she was open to getting a separate email address but didn’t want “any risk of the personal being accessible.” Clinton never used an official State Department address, only using several private addresses to communicate. Abedin, Mills, Sullivan and Reines all also used private email addresses to conduct business, along with their government accounts.
Two other emails sent to Abedin were cited in the inspector general’s report, but also did not turn up among the emails released by Clinton. Those messages to Abedin contained warnings in January 2011 from an unidentified aide to former President Bill Clinton who said he had to shut down Hillary Clinton’s New York-based server because of suspected hacking attacks.
In response, Abedin warned Mills and Sullivan not to email Clinton “anything sensitive” and said she would “explain more in person.”
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Follow on Twitter: Jack Gillum at https://twitter.com/jackgillum and Chad Day at https://twitter.com/chadsday
Obama ready to face historic, haunted ground of Hiroshima
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Convinced that the time for this moment is right at last, President Barack Obama on Friday will become the first American president to confront the historic and haunted ground of Hiroshima.
Here, at this place of so much suffering, where U.S. forces dropped the atomic bomb that gave birth to the nuclear age, Obama will pay tribute to the 140,000 people who died from the attack seven decades ago.
He will not apologize. He will not second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision to unleash the awful power of nuclear weapons. He will not dissect Japanese aggression in World War II.
Rather, Obama aimed to offer a simple reflection, acknowledging the devastating toll of war and coupling it with a message that the world can — and must — do better.
He will look back, placing a wreath at the centopath, an arched monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park honoring those killed by the bomb that U.S. forces dropped on Aug. 6, 1945. A second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed 70,000 more.
Obama will also look forward.
Hiroshima is a “testament to how even the most painful divide” can be bridged and former adversaries can become friends, Obama said as he stopped to briefly address U.S. troops at the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni before his visit.
His trip, he said, was an “opportunity to honor the memory of all who were lost in World War II.”
Those who come to ground zero at Hiroshima speak of its emotional impact, of the searing imagery of the exposed steel beams on the iconic A-bomb dome. The skeletal remains of the exhibition hall have become an international symbol of peace and a place for prayer.
The president will be accompanied on his visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — a demonstration of the friendship that exists between the only nation ever to use an atomic bomb and the only nation ever to have suffered from one.
Bomb survivor Kinuyo Ikegami, 82, paid her own respects at the cenotaph on Friday morning, well before Obama arrived, lighting incense and chanting a prayer.
Tears ran down her face as she described the immediate aftermath of the bomb.
“I could hear schoolchildren screaming: ‘Help me! Help me!'” she said. “It was too pitiful, too horrible. Even now it fills me with emotion.”
Han Jeong-soon, the 58-year-old daughter of a Korean survivor, was there too.
“The suffering, such as illness, gets carried on over the generations – that is what I want President Obama to know,” she said. “I want him to understand our sufferings.”
Obama’s visit is a moment 70 years in the making. Other American presidents considered coming, but the politics were still too sensitive, the emotions too raw. Jimmy Carter visited as a former president in 1984.
Even now, when polls find 70 percent of the Japanese support Obama’s decision to come to Hiroshima, Obama’s visit is fraught.
His choreographed visit will be parsed by people with many agendas.
There are political foes at home who are ready to seize on any hint of an unwelcome expression of regret.
There are Koreans who want to hear the president acknowledge the estimated 20,000-40,000 of their citizens who were among the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are blast survivors who want Obama to listen to their stories, to see their scars — physical and otherwise.
There are activists looking for a pledge of new, concrete steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
There are American former POWs who want the president to fault Japan for starting the war in the Pacific.
Obama will try to navigate those shoals by saying less, not more.
The dropping of the bomb, he said Thursday, “was an inflection point in modern history. It is something that all of us have had to deal with in one way or another.”
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Benac reported from Shima, Japan.
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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nbenac
Spike in crime in Las Vegas spurs search for causes, cures
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2015 file photo, police and emergency crews respond to the scene of an incident along Las Vegas Boulevard, in Las Vegas. Crime is spiking in Las Vegas and spurring questions about causes and cures. A motorist plowed through a crowd of Las Vegas Strip pedestrians in December, killing one and injuring at least 34 others from seven states, Mexico and Canada. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) (Credit: AP)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — From shootings on the Strip to the killing of a liquor store clerk who couldn’t open a safe to an April weekend that saw five slayings in separate cases, crime is spiking in the shadows in Las Vegas — and spurring questions about causes and cures.
The local sheriff, police union officials and district attorney have various theories about what’s behind the body count: 64 homicides by the end of April, compared with 29 killings after the first four months of 2015; 75 slayings as of Wednesday, compared with 45 by the same date last year.
They cite officer staffing levels; gang activity; jail release policies locally and in neighboring California; and a departmental reorganization after Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo was elected 18 months ago.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” DA Steve Wolfson said. “There are lots of theories.”
Lombardo defends his deployment decisions, and concedes that pointing the finger at California jails and criminals is based more on what he calls a gut reaction than on statistics.
“Everybody’s dealing with an increase in violent crime across the nation,” Lombardo said. “The question is whether we’re dealing with it more here than anybody else.”
In Washington, D.C., FBI Director James Comey cited Las Vegas and Chicago as examples of a rise in violence nationally. He said he’d been briefed about crime rates in more than 40 cities, but he named just two.
“From the Las Vegas Strip you can’t tell that more than 60 people have been murdered in Las Vegas this year,” Comey recently told reporters in the nation’s capital.
Lombardo, a 25-year Las Vegas police veteran, heads a department with 2,612 sworn police officers covering a city and most of a county with more than 2 million residents, plus more than 40 million visitors a year.
“Officers’ presence makes a difference,” Lombardo said. “All the resources we can, within reason, we bring forward to attack violent crime.”
But the image of the safety in Sin City has been shaken several times in recent months:
— A motorist plowed through a crowd of Las Vegas Strip pedestrians in December, killing one and injuring at least 34 others from seven states, Mexico and Canada.
— Two bystanders were grazed by police gunfire in a January shooting during an evening musical fountain show at the Bellagio resort. The officer was firing at a man with a handgun, who wasn’t hit.
— A shooting in February killed two San Francisco Bay-area women and left a man wounded in a car after a fistfight in a Strip resort parking lot.
— A brazen takeover robbery at a warehouse-style liquor store stunned the city in April. Security video showed three assailants entering the store, and cameras recorded the shooting death of a 24-year-old clerk who police said didn’t have the combination to open the safe.
The headlines have prompted second-guessing amid the police rank-and-file — including some who think dispersing gang detectives from a central office to the department’s eight regional commands was a bad idea.
“We didn’t get more bodies. We moved people around,” said Mark Chaparian, executive director of the local police union. “When homicide numbers have doubled and violent crime is up, everyone looks at what happened and asks, ‘What went wrong?'”
John Faulis, a lieutenant who heads the police supervisors’ union, agrees with Lombardo that Las Vegas police are understaffed. Department figures put the number of police officers in Las Vegas at 1.7 per 1,000 residents.
The number is just under the 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents average for large cities in the West, according to FBI data, but below the average of 2.2 per 1,000 for similar-sized cities nationally. The ratio doesn’t count people staying in Las Vegas’ 150,000 hotel rooms.
Lombardo, who looks to cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix as models, said he believes half the homicides this year in Las Vegas have been associated with gangs. Police estimate that Las Vegas has 15,000 gang members.
Los Angeles also is seeing a spike in crime this year compared with 2015, said Kevin McCarthy, detective commander of a department with nearly 10,000 sworn police officers in a city of 4 million people — a ratio of 4 per 1,000. McCarthy said violent crime was up 16 percent and homicides were up 16.5 percent.
In Phoenix, a city of 1.5 million people, homicides are up one-third this year, from 33 in the first four months of 2015 to 49 this year. The police department has a ratio of 2.1 officers per 1,000 residents.
San Diego, a city of 1.4 million, appears to be an exception, with violent crime down 12 percent in the first three months of 2016, compared with 2015. It has 1.5 police officers per 1,000 residents.
Elected officials in Las Vegas balked several times in recent years at proposals to hike the local sales tax to hire more officers before voting in September to increase the sales tax from 8.1 percent to 8.15 percent.
“Do we need more cops? Obviously,” said Steve Sisolak, chairman of the seven-member Clark County Commission, the elected body with oversight of the Las Vegas Strip. “But how do you pay for them?”
