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The Puerto Rican government acknowledged in a new report in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that more than 1,400 people likely died on the island because of the storm, roughly 20 times the previous number that had been provided. The government on Thursday published a report titled "Transformation and Innovation in the Wake of Devastation," which outlines the island's response to the storm and what it intends to do to strengthen its economy and infrastructure moving forward. It also includes new estimates on the death toll. “Although the official death count from the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety was...

Good grief, this is horrific. ABC News Chicago is reporting that over 60 people have been shot, with 9 killed, in Chicago just this weekend (Friday through Sunday). (Chicago) Dozens of people were wounded in shootings across Chicago since Friday, police said. One paramedic described the evening as “a war zone.” Since midnight, police said 43 people have been shot, six fatally. Since Friday at 5 p.m., 60 people have been shot, nine fatally, in shootings in Chicago. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police. During one two-and-a-half...

More than a hundred people have been killed in a suicide bombing in Pakistan as tensions rise in the country ahead of an election on July 25. At least 128 people died in the explosion at an election rally in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Siraj Raisani, a candidate running for a provincial assembly, was among those killed in the town of Mastung. It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan in four years. Hours after the bombing, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested after making a high-profile return to the country. Sharif was given a 10-year prison sentence in...

Two boats carrying tourists off the coast of Thailand capsized in 16-foot waves near the resort island of Phuket, killing at least 33 people and leaving dozens missing, officials said Friday. One of the boats, the double-decker cruise ship Phoenix PC Diving, was carrying 105 passengers — including 93 tourists, all from China — when it capsized Thursday after leaving Koh Racha, a popular snorkeling spot. Phuket officials said Friday evening that 33 bodies had been recovered so far, all of them Chinese nationals. Twenty-three other people are missing. The second boat, the Serenita, sank Thursday off Koh Mai Thon,...

Five people have died and several others are hurt after a shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper building in Annapolis, Maryland, local and federal officials say. The names of the dead were not released immediately. The suspected shooter is in custody, and authorities are questioning him, officials said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. "I don't know what to say other than our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and we take comfort knowing that they are in God's embrace," Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh said. Injured victims are being treated at R. Adams Cowley Shock...

Rescuers struggled to reach rural residents cut off by a volcanic eruption that killed at 25 people near Guatemala's capital, and authorities feared the death toll could rise with an undetermined number of people unaccounted for. The Volcan de Fuego, Spanish for "volcano of fire," exploded in a hail of ash and molten rock shortly before noon Sunday, blanketing nearby villages in heavy ash. Then it began sending lava flows down the mountain's flank and across homes and roads around 4 p.m. local time Eddy Sanchez, director of the country's seismology and volcanology institute, said the flows reached temperatures of...

Another person has died in Congo of a confirmed case of Ebola, bringing the number of fatalities from the latest outbreak to 12, the country’s health ministry said Sunday. The death happened in Iboko, a rural area in northwestern Equateur province, the health ministry said in a statement. There are also four new suspected cases in the province, the statement reported. Congo now has 35 confirmed Ebola cases. Health workers have identified people who have been in contact with the patients in the confirmed Ebola cases in three areas in Equateur province, Iboko, rural Bikoro and Mbandaka, the provincial capital...

Four new cases have been confirmed as Ebola, said the health ministry in a statement released early Sunday. A total of 46 cases of hemorrhagic fever have been reported in the current outbreak, including 21 confirmed cases of Ebola, 21 probable and four suspected.

At least eight people have been killed in a Texas high school shooting Friday, FOX 26 reported. The suspected shooter was taken into custody and the active shooter situation was said to be over. Police officers responded to Santa Fe High School around 8 a.m. CDT after reports that a shooter opened fire inside. The gunman appears to be a student, KTRK reports, citing a law enforcement official. Further details of the incident were not immediately available.

At least 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and 1,960 others were wounded after protesters converged on the razor wire fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel hours before the U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem. Monday's march was meant to express anger over U.S. Embassy's inauguration. Tuesday is “Nakba” or Catastrophe Day, when Palestinians observe the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding. Moving the embassy from Tel Aviv breaks with decades of Washington policy and distances America from its allies.The protest movement started not with a bullet or a bomb, but with a hashtag. “What if 200,000 demonstrators in a...

The Israel Police is preparing for the US embassy's official opening ceremony in Jerusalem with thousands of policeman deployed through the city. At 4:00 PM the official ceremony will take place at the US Consulate in the Armona neighborhood of Jerusalem, which will officially become the US embassy this week. Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem were urged to turn out en masse to protest the embassy move..... 3:11 PM Protest death toll rises to 28, Gaza Health ministry reports.......

A family of six launched suicide attacks on Christians attending Sunday services at three churches in Indonesia's second-largest city of Surabaya, killing at least 13 people and wounding 40, officials said. Police said the family who carried out Sunday's attacks were among 500 Islamic sympathizers who had returned from Syria. "The husband drove the car, an Avanza, that contained explosives and rammed it into the gate in front of that church," East Java police spokesman Frans Barung Mangera told reporters at the regional police headquarters in Surabaya. The wife and two daughters were involved in an attack on a second...

Police in Indonesia are promising to crack down on the distribution of bootleg alcohol as deaths this month from drinking illegally produced toxic liquor rose to at least 86... "In the past, bootleg alcohol was found to be a mixture of alcohol and energy drinks. Some are a mix of pure alcohol, carbonated drinks and an ingredient used in anti-mosquito repellent."... Alcohol is legal in Indonesia, but over 100 regional regulations are in place to control consumption. Across the country, the sale of alcoholic beverages containing less than 5% alcohol, such as beer, is no longer allowed in convenience stores...

If only Michael Mann could “adjust” real temperatures the way he adjusted them on his infamous “hockey stick” graph that formed the key argument of Al Gore’s scaremongering hit movie, An Inconvenient Truth. But instead of “The end of snow” (New York Times, 2014), Britain has gotten hit with a long and very cold winter. The tabloid Daily Star sensationalizes the cold snap with “studies” that come up with the figure of 48,000 “excess” deaths blamed in the cold snap. Quite frankly, one can concoct all sorts of studies to “prove” or “demonstrate” all sorts of dubious propositions. So,...

Five people were killed when a private helicopter with six people on board crashed into the East River in New York City on Sunday, authorities said. Three people transported to area hospitals after the crash later died, New York Fire Department spokesman Jim Long said. Two others were pronounced dead at the scene of the incident. The pilot freed himself and was taken to a hospital in "OK" condition, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigron told reporters Sunday night. The pilot was later named 33-year-old Richard Vance

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian passenger plane believed to be carrying 71 people crashed Sunday afternoon near Moscow, shortly after takeoff from one of the city's airports. No survivors were immediately reported. The An-148 regional jet disappeared from radar screens a few minutes after departing from Domodedovo Airport en route to the city of Orsk, some 1,000 miles southeast of Moscow. http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-the-latest-russian-plane-carrying-71-crashes-near-moscow-2018-2

‘Healers become dealers’ Opioids kill first by slowing down breathing, then by depriving the brain and body of oxygen, the very stuff of life. By 2009, drug overdose deaths had become the leading cause of accidental deaths in the U.S., surpassing traffic fatalities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that the nation faced an opioid epidemic. Overprescribing has fueled much of this epidemic, said Dr. Anna Lembke, an associate professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences and anesthesiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “So how did healers become dealers?” she asked. It happened as medicine became an industry,...

Citing a strain on “overwhelmed” health resources, Governor Kay Ivey declared an official State of Emergency in Alabama on Thursday due to the rapidly spreading flu epidemic. WHEREAS the State Health Officer has reported that an outbreak of the influenza virus has occurred in the State of Alabama; and WHEREAS this outbreak poses a high probability of widespread exposure to an infectious agent that poses significant risk of substantial harm to a large number of people in the affected population; and WHEREAS the health care facilities and personnel of the State are overwhelmed by the number of ill patients and...

There were 664 homicides in Chicago in 2017 and, for comparison, 37 casualties in the U.S. military in its myriad operations around the globe. That’s according to data from the Chicago Tribune and from the Department of Defense’s press office. The Chicago deaths are for the period Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2017; the military deaths are from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 22, 2017, which is the latest update on casualties by the DoD posted so far. (There may have been a few more military casualties in December.) From the data available, it shows that Chicago suffered 17.9...

Under Obama, America has been at war for longer than under any other U.S. president