Death followed us here

JABALIYA, Gaza Strip — The strikes came in rapid succession. At around 5 a.m. Wednesday at a United Nations school at the Jabaliya refugee camp, where 3,300 Palestinians had taken refuge from the fierce fighting in their Gaza neighborhoods, what appeared to be four Israeli artillery shells hit the compound.

One hit the street in front of the entrance, according to several witnesses. Two others hit classrooms where people were sleeping.

Palestinian health officials said at least 20 people were killed by what witnesses and United Nations officials said was the latest in a series of strikes on United Nations facilities that are supposed to be safe zones in the 23-day-old battle against Hamas and other militants.

“My house was burned and death followed us here,” said Ahmed Mousa, 50, who was in the school courtyard when the shells hit. “Where am I supposed to go?”

border patrol

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — The mother of a Mexican teen who was shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol agent nearly two years ago sued the agency on Tuesday, saying her son was walking home after playing basketball with his girlfriend and friends when he was hit in the back by 10 bullets.

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, was in Nogales, Sonora, near the tall, steel fence that divides the United States and Mexico when a Border Patrol agent shot him from Nogales, Arizona, on Oct. 10, 2012. An autopsy shows the teen was shot at least eight times.

The Border Patrol has said Elena Rodriguez was among a group of people throwing rocks at agents across the border, endangering their lives.

fear

Recent findings published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may help explain how some mothers' previously experienced traumas--including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and certain phobias--could affect their children later in life.
"During the early days of an infant rat's life, they are immune to learning information about environmental dangers. But if their mother is the source of threat information, we have shown they can learn from her and produce lasting memories," said lead study author Jacek Debiec, M.D., Ph.D., the U-M psychiatrist and neuroscientist, in a news release. "Before they can even make their own experiences, they basically acquire their mothers' experiences. Most importantly, these maternally-transmitted memories are long-lived, whereas other types of infant learning, if not repeated, rapidly perish."
For the study, researchers taught rats to fear the smell of peppermint by giving the rodents electric shocks whenever they were exposed to the candy. However, a control group in the experiment did not experience anything when given the scent.

China

China says dozens are dead following an attack by a mob armed with knives in restive Xinjiang province, the latest in a series of attacks in the region.
The official Xinhua news agency says the mob staged attacks in two towns Monday, killing both Han and Uighur residents. The report says police responded with gunfire, killing dozens of attackers. An unknown number of people were wounded in the violence, which the report called a "premeditated terrorist attack."

humanitarian gesture

Israel

7/16/14

(code word: humanitarian gesture)

TEL AVIV — After nine days of aerial assaults on Gaza that have killed more than 200 people, Israel announced late Wednesday that it would suspend the attacks for five hours on Thursday as a humanitarian gesture at the request of the United Nations. But a senior Israeli military official said that the likelihood of a ground invasion to eliminate militants’ rockets launched from Gaza was “very high.”