From filthy beaches and stinking cities to plastic-choked waterways, litter is threatening some of Earth's most beautiful destinations and last remaining wildernesses. We take a look at holiday hot spots overwhelmed with rubbish as a result of over-population, mass tourism and poor environmental practices. Trash tarnishes tourist hot spots From filthy beaches and stinking cities to plastic-choked waterways, litter is threatening some of Earth's most beautiful destinations and last remaining wildernesses. We take a look at holiday hot spots overwhelmed with garbage as a result of over-population, mass tourism and poor environmental practices. Mount Everest, Nepal Discarded camping gear, used oxygen tanks, ropes, food packaging and human waste reveals the ugly face of adventure tourism on Mount Everest. This image was taken on Camp 4 which, at 26,240 feet (7,998m), is the world's highest campsite and where the main problem is tents and gear abandoned to the elements. As summiting Everest becomes increasingly commercial, it's been reported that cheaper expedition operators are cutting costs by reducing waste removal. Mount Everest, Nepal Hampered by exhaustion, altitude and the dangerous terrain, carrying bulky items back down can be a step too far for some climbers. Instead abandoned gear and litter is often left at Camp 4 to be strewn around by high winds. As well as environmental concerns, it can become a hazard for other climbers, although some people argue the frozen tents are impossible to remove. With 2019 a record climbing season, there's little doubt that the trash will have ramped up a gear. Mount Everest, Nepal Many Sherpas have risked their lives to retrieve trash and human waste left behind by climbers on the mountain. In recent years the Nepalese government, expedition organizers and charities have organized official clean-up operations at the start of the season to remove trash from the increasingly busy trail up to base camp and beyond. Bali, Indonesia The beaches of island paradise Bali are sadly not as picturesque as the postcards would seem. Trash has become a major blight on some of the island's most popular beaches such as Kuta Beach (pictured here). It's particularly bad during the annual monsoon season when an assortment of debris is swept in by strong winds and currents, and strewn across the sands. Swollen rivers wash trash from riverbanks to the coastline too. Bali, Indonesia The stretch between Kuta and Canggu is one of the Indonesian holiday island's most popular tourist beaches and where some of the worst litter is seen. But the problem also affects beaches elsewhere and in neighboring Java and Nusa Tenggara, where driftwood and garbage, including a lot of single-use plastics, turn idyllic sands into eyesores. Bali announced a "garbage emergency" in 2017 due to the vast amounts of trash littering its shores and waters. Bali, Indonesia The Indonesian archipelago is one of the world's worst contributors to marine plastic pollution, according to a study published by the journal Nature Communications in 2017 . Activist group One Island One Voice has organized mass voluntary clean-ups for the past few years on Bali's shoreline and officials are looking at implementing bans on single-use plastics such as straws and plastic bags to help stem the deluge of waste. Machu Picchu, Peru Many man-made wonders of the world face being swamped with trash too. Ancient citadel Machu Picchu is battling a growing amount of waste as visitor numbers soar. Some tourists trekking to the ruins have reported seeing litter along the Inca Trail while removing trash from the lofty site itself is a mission. According to the United Nations , tourists produce around 14 tons of trash every day, which the fragile site struggles to deal with. Halong Bay, Vietnam Unsightly scenes of trash floating in the water are sadly how many visitors recall their voyage around Vietnam's bay that's famed for its emerald waters and towering limestone islands. While Halong Bay is a magical landscape, it faces many environmental challenges as it attracts more and more visitors. A pressing problem is that the UNESCO site is being polluted with litter, waste and discarded fuel from the boats that ferry visitors. Halong Bay, Vietnam Styrofoam, plastic wrappers and bottles bobbing around the water and strewn around the bay are depressingly common sights and forums on TripAdvisor feature discussions from tourists lamenting the amount of trash and waste water they've seen polluting Halong Bay. Local community volunteers are trying to tackle the growing trash problem to safeguard one of Vietnam's most valuable and unique destinations. Maldives What's considered one of the world's most pristine paradises is also facing a huge waterborne garbage problem. Many of the white sand beaches of the Maldives need to be cleaned daily of washed-up trash and discarded fishing nets. Over-tourism is contributing to the Indian Ocean islands' influx of plastic waste, which is posing a real and immediate threat to marine animals and their fragile ecosystems as the microplastics are ingested by plankton, fish and other creatures. Maldives Waste management has long been a real issue on the low-lying islands where everything is imported. For some time, the Maldives' sole waste-processing plant was on a reclaimed island called Thilafushi. Waste from across the islands was taken to so-called Trash Island, just to the west of capital Malé, to be buried, burned or recycled. The facility was so stretched that some illegal dumping of waste directly into the sea occurred. Today trash is shipped to be processed in India. River Thames, UK Up to 300 tons of trash are recovered from the Thames every year by the Port of London Authority, with the amount of plastics growing every year. Recent river clean-ups by the Marine Conservation Society and Thames21 discovered that 60% of litter in the River Thames is made of plastic. As well as metal cans, food packaging and plastic bottles, wet wipes are another nuisance. They made up 77% of the 2,520 items which were taken out of the river in February 2019. River Thames, UK At Southend-on-Sea, where the Thames meets the North Sea, 560 items of the litter found were unrecognizable pieces of plastic. The Thames Estuary shoreline is an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine wildlife. As tons of trash and litter are being dumped in the waterways of the Thames Valley, the effect on the wildlife and marine life as the trash flows out into the North Sea will be devastating. Hawaii, USA Marine debris has reached critical levels in remote parts of the Pacific too with some of Hawaii's once pristine beaches suffering from a major plastic problem. Many of its beaches and islands, including Niihau (pictured here), are overwhelmed with plastic detritus. Much of the debris is being washed up from a giant convergence of waste, dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is swirling around in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. Hawaii, USA Kamilo Point, a far-flung beach in the south of the Big Island, the most easterly of Hawaii's islands, is a particularly litter-strewn stretch of sand where plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch commonly accumulates. Known as Trash Beach, its white sands have become a dumping ground for all manner of junk including plastics and discarded fishing gear as the Pacific Ocean's currents and powerful winds dump man-made trash ashore by the truckload. Hawaii, USA According to the Hawaii Wildlife Fund, it has cleaned more than 100 tons of marine debris from the remote beaches of South Point in the Big Island during the last four years. This quiet part of the coastline is visited by endangered Hawaiian monk seals, humpback whales and nested on by hawksbill turtles which are being harmed by the devastating flotsam. Agra, India One of India's most sacred rivers, the Yamuna, which flows past the country's most famous building, the Taj Mahal, is clogged with garbage as well as being polluted by household and industrial waste. Waste is a serious issue across the country with many of its rivers and waterways choked with bottles, bags and plastic packaging, while streets are lined with bags of trash. The sight of the world wonder reflected in the garbage-strewn river is not what most sightseers bargain for. Check out more incredible tourist attractions that don't look like they used to here . Barcelona, Spain From far-flung sands to populous urban spots, washed-up waste is becoming a problem on beaches the world over. As tourism overwhelms the city of Barcelona, its beaches have borne the brunt with many partygoers and visitors leaving more than a footprint in the sand. Cigarette butts, plastic glasses, bottles and food containers can be seen littering the sands of Barceloneta beach and others after the pleasure-seeking crowds disperse. Want an alternative to Barcelona? Discover the best underrated European cities here . Barcelona, Spain However, the city does not take littering lying down. Hefty fines are dispensed to offenders and garbage trucks regularly plough the sand to collect trash. In 2019, the city implemented a Zero Waste strategy on its beaches, in collaboration with the beach bars to help reduce the amount of single-use plastics on its shores. Bartenders will only serve beachgoers takeaway drinks in returnable glasses which have a $1.14 (£0.90/€1) deposit. Phuket, Thailand Waste is something that has been tarnishing Thailand's beguiling islands for many years now. The island of Phuket, pictured, is one tourist hot spot where beaches are scattered with garbage and the water quality is dubious at best. The rising levels of trash, escalated by excessive tourism and poor waste management, are causing serious ecological challenges across the country. Thailand is among the world's worst offenders when it comes to plastic pollution and the effects are visible on Phuket. Koh Lanta, Thailand While it's no surprise that party islands Phuket and Koh Samui suffer from a litter problem, it's more shocking to see relatively sleepy and remote Koh Lanta does too. According to the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, Thais generate as much as 1.14kg (2.5lb) of garbage per head per day, with one person using around eight plastic bags a day. Moves have been made to clean up popular beaches with cigarettes banned, and plastic bags and Styrofoam containers banned in national marine parks. Discover the strangest things that have washed up on beaches here . Rome, Italy An ongoing garbage collection crisis, which included a strike by trash collectors and a fire at a waste plant, has seen parts of the Eternal City laid to waste. Overflowing communal bins and uncollected junk covering sidewalks and marketplaces are an all-too-common sight in what is one of Europe's most beautiful and populous cities. The stench of hot garbage is sadly now what lingers in the memory after a visit to the increasingly shabby city of Rome. Rome, Italy Thanks to poorly organized garbage collections, the sight of wild boars foraging through sacks of trash in streets and enormous seagulls attacking bins is far from unusual in Rome. Citizen groups have taken matters into their own hands by organizing voluntary clean-ups around the ancient metropolis. Last year, angry locals held protests dubbed "Rome says enough" about the neglected state of their beloved city. Boracay Island, the Philippines In 2018, beach resort Boracay Island became a poster child for the ugly face of over-development when the Philippines' president Rodrigo Duterte announced its closure and called it a "cesspool". His comment referred to the raw sewage that was videoed flowing directly into the tiny isle's famed blue waters from hotels and restaurants. The scale of trash was another huge issue with the amount generated per person more than three times higher than in the capital Manila. Boracay Island, the Philippines At peak times there would be 40,000 visitors on the popular beach resort, leaving behind mountains of garbage. After being closed for six months to allow for large-scale trash clear-ups and sewage system upgrades, the island has reopened. There are now strict limits on the number of tourists (only 19,200 at a time) and hotels allowed on the island, as well as a ban on drinking and smoking at the beaches. Lake Titicaca, Bolivia and Peru The sight of litter lying along the shores of the sacred Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world, is a very sorry one. It's just one of the problems affecting the ancient lake whose waters were thought to be the birthplace of the sun by the Incas and now have dangerously high levels of pollution. Industrial and household waste, plastics and other trash is washed into the lake, polluting its water and poisoning its aquatic animals. Trash deposited on its islands is ingested by livestock and the pollution is causing health problems among the people living along its shores. Mumbai, India One city battling a seemingly losing fight against the rising tides of refuse is Mumbai, where volunteers have been waging war on detritus on the city beaches for several years. It's not just the day-to-day trash that gets left behind by beachgoers but tons of garbage are continually washed up from the sea. Versova and Juhu beach are some of the dirtiest spots, with plenty of unsanitary sights and scents scarring its sands. Mumbai, India As India's most highly populated city, Mumbai has a well-documented waste problem. The deluge of trash that washes out from its streets and slums ends up in the Arabian Sea before huge masses of it are deposited back on its beaches. The unpleasant problem is exacerbated during the heavy rainfall of the monsoon season when truckloads of trash are cleared from the beaches every day. Read more about the world's most dangerous beaches here . Lebanon Another nation fighting a never-ending battle with garbage on its shoreline is Lebanon. According to the BBC , the country has a growing garbage problem with trash being directly dumped into the sea and coastal landfills. Recent winter storms brought the issue to public attention as masses of trash littered its lovely Mediterranean coast and its seas were seen awash with garbage. Lebanon Regular beach clean-ups have been organized by environmental groups for years but a huge nationwide clean-up operation was undertaken in Lebanon in 2019 to remove vast piles of garbage   much of it plastic. Volunteers cleared masses of trash from more than 150 locations, including its beaches and waters. Pictured here is a diver retrieving trash from the Corniche promenade in Beirut. A national beach clean-up day was spearheaded by the Lebanese Minister for Environment. Honduras, the Caribbean Another sea mired with floating masses of marine trash is the Caribbean Sea. Beaches in Honduras and Panama's San Blas Islands, among others, are being choked by a mass of plastic bottles, wrappers and other detritus as it washes ashore. Plastic waste floating off the coast of Roatán, an island in Honduras (pictured) renowned for its beautiful beaches, is thought to have been washed into the sea from Guatemala. Read more: The world's most endangered rainforests Dominican Republic, the Caribbean The vast sea of pollution and plastic bobbing about in the Caribbean Sea has affected the Dominican Republic too with a surge in microplastics polluting its beaches and waters. These tiny pieces of plastic have a devastating effect on the coral reefs and marine life that ingest them. Last year saw a massive clear-up operation on the beautiful island with soldiers, conservationists, local government agencies and residents trying to clean the beaches. Read more: 50 gorgeous photos of the last unspoiled places on Earth Mallorca, Spain Mass tourism and poor infrastructure are some of the reasons why the Mediterranean island of Mallorca can be plagued by trash problems. This bay near Palma is an unsightly mass of garbage and sewage, caused by heavy rainfalls. Thoughtless tourists have been blamed for regularly littering Playa de Palma, a gorgeous but busy stretch of sand, with their beer bottles, food wrappers and cigarette butts. Read more: The amazing tourist attractions ruined by commercialization


NASCAR's new aero package gets another big test Sunday at Michigan and what it will look like depends on who you ask. Drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series of late have been a bit hesitant to predict how the new aero package with perform in races, in particular because many of those predictions have turned out to be off-base. Some races, like Charlotte and Kansas, turned out better than expected. Others, like last weekend at Pocono, appeared to fall short of expectations. Entering this weekend at Michigan International Speedway , there were several drivers who expected this track would once again showcase the best the package has to offer. Yet even during the course of the weekend, some drivers' expectations have changed. Here is a sampling of what drivers think we may see on in Sunday's FireKeepers 400 following two days of practice and qualifying on the track: Ryan Blaney: You try to balance out the drag versus handling. If you want less drag you will handle worse. There are a lot of people back and forth on that. You hope you hit it right, get the combination right. Some cars qualify great and don't race good. We have always been on the not qualifying great side and racing really well. You just hope you get it right. There is only one way to find out. Chris Buescher: I would say dirty air is something that is going to come into play here. It's not going to be like a Daytona or Talladega type race. It was hard to pass in practice; I think that will get better in the race. It will get a little more aggressive. It's going to be a tough one. Kurt Busch: What I am starting to see is that the pace is still too fast. Pocono, I thought would be slower and there would be more of a draft effect. Here, the pace is fast and yes, there is a draft, but I want it to be a larger effect. So, the only way I think you would make a change at this point is to go to a different sized tapered spacer and slow the cars down. You would make it to where the cars are forced to run in a draft. Matt DiBenedetto: It's the same battles we've had all year. It will be tough, but I think you'll get a suck-up on the straightaways for sure. That might make you have to play a little defense to the guy behind you and things like that. It is tough in the corners, you can get stuck behind people that you might be significantly faster than and that's just a product of the fact that in my opinion, big spoilers don't belong on stock cars and it makes it tough to pass. Denny Hamlin: Cars will be closer together and who knows how passing is going to be. It looked like it was a little tough in practice, but certainly we're running a lot of on-throttle time. We'll just sort of see how the race plays out and then we'll know better for the second race when we come back. Kevin Harvick: This is one of the places where the speed was creeping in a lot higher than it needed to be. I think it will be an interesting race. The cars are driving better and drafting better than I thought they would. It should be fun to watch tomorrow. Jimmie Johnson: We certainly found some limits to the car driving comfortably. It's one thing to have it going fast down the straightaway, but if you're crawling through the turn, then it's not really good. I saw a lot of cars really unhappy out there through the turns. Mine was in the 'really fast down the straightaway' category and not so good through the turns. We're working on it for sure. Joey Logano, pole-winner: It is not going to be like Daytona and Talladega. Those tracks are so easy wide open in dirty air that the draft works throughout the whole race track. There is some times that you can follow a car right behind them here and still be pretty much wide open but you have to be one of the first two to four cars to be able to do that. So when you get back in the pack, the more handling is going to mean and that is when you have to approach it more like a race you would at Kansas and be smart about what lines you pick and where you are trying to make passes. Martin Truex Jr.: It's going to be a big challenge to make moves tomorrow and make the right moves. It seems like this place here, you almost get penalized when you beat someone through the corner getting underneath them. You try to pass somebody and if they screw up getting into the corner or whatever, you can get under them and then you get on the straightaway and six cars pass you. It's a frustrating place to race because of that. From the editor, also read: Joey Logano beats Almirola for Michigan Cup pole


Just like every offseason, the Patriots had some personnel losses after last season. Just like most seasons since Tom Brady has quarterbacked the team, the Patriots are among the Super Bowl favorites. New England never lets a free agency, retirement or any other kind of departure get in its way. So while the Patriots must replace Rob Gronkowski, Chris Hogan , Cordarrelle Patterson , Malcolm Brown , Jared Veldheer, Trent Brown , Brian Flores and others, they know how to overcome attrition. Linebacker Kyle Van Noy credits Bill Belichick and the "Patriot Way." "Bill does a really good job of the culture being set with the players that have been there for their tenures," Van Noy told Willie McGinnest on NFL Network. "Like Patrick Chung , Dont'a Hightower , Devin McCourty , Tom, they've been there for a while, Matthew Slater . Those guys have already been passed on from your generation, the standard, and we're just trying to keep that legacy going. "When that culture is set, it doesn't matter. We all have the same goal in mind, and that's just to win." Of course, it doesn't hurt to have the greatest coach and the greatest quarterback in history. The Patriots don't have another Gronkowski on their roster, but with Brady as their quarterback, there is no reason to believe they will do anything other than what they always have done with Brady as their quarterback. The same can be said for the Patriots defense after Belichick did not name a defensive coordinator to replace Flores. Instead, the head coach will take a bigger role in the defense this season. "I think for me, anytime you get to learn from one of the best ever to do it   to me, he's the best   to learn from him each and every day, to have that mindset in your meetings all the time, getting you information and things that you normally don't see, you get in his mind a little bit, it's the best," Van Noy said. The Patriots' dynasty will end at some point, but who knows when?


What happens when cookies are baked in space? Will they puff into fluffballs, or be dense fudgy spheres? Will they have crispy caramelized edges, or gooey middles? Will a lack of gravity allow us to one day make a space souffle that never collapses? Some enterprising bakers are sending cookie dough into orbit to answer these questions and many more. In a truly interstellar marketing ploy, the recipe and funding is coming from Hilton DoubleTree. With more than 25 million DoubleTree cookies distributed to hotel guests every year, it's a well-tested recipe that has to consistently produce the same taste and texture at hotels around the world. But will the cookies cook the same in space? A prototype oven and a batch of frozen cookie dough are ready to launch to the International Space Station later this year so astronauts can find out. This isn't an entirely goofy stunt. As any pastry chef will tell you, baking is a real science. "What's the most familiar laboratory that we have in most of our homes? The kitchen," says Ian Fichtenbaum, co-founder of Zero G Kitchen, one of the companies attempting to make the Earthbound cookies space-worthy. For example, the ratio of white to brown sugar dictates the difference between a crispy or chewy cookie, a distinction emphasized by fiddling around with sugar's critical 356°F caramelization temperature. Egg yolks gives cookies their fudgy, gooey texture, while egg whites puff into taller, fluffier cookies. The type of fat butter, shortening, margarine, or oil isn't just about taste, but also melting temperature, which dictates cookie texture. Leavens like baking soda rise dough, but they also neutralize acid to allow browning. Even cooling matters, with a quick rest on a wire rack allowing the dough to set and reduce how much the cookies crumble. But we don't know how all of this will work in space. On Earth, round balls take longer to bake than thin discs but when there's no gravity to cause the cookies to flatten, what shape will they form? The chemical reaction of how moisture, alkali, and acid within cookie dough react when heated will still produce carbon dioxide gas but will those bubbles spread to aerate the dough into a puffy cookie? "We really don't cook in space, we just warm things up or we add water to rehydrate them," says Mike Massimino, a former astronaut who helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He was the first person to tweet from space, and now he's Hilton's space-savvy cookie consultant. "So we're not sure how the baking process is going to work." The first step toward bringing edible science into orbit is designing a zero-gravity oven. This comes with unique challenges. Most ovens on Earth rely on convection, which is the circulation of air as heat rises. "That doesn't really happen to the same extent in zero gravity," Fichtenbaum says. Instead, heating elements are arranged to create a pocket of heat. The cookie dough is also encased in silicone pouches to keep it from flying around. "We really don't know what's going to happen," Massimino says. "Is it going to poof up? How does gravity affect cooking?" The questions abound. Will they be chewy or crispy? Will they be thick or thin? Will they cook thoroughly within eight to 12 minutes at 350°F, like most cookie recipes, or will the thermodynamics change? Will they even be cookie-shaped at all? "We're thinking they will bake in a spherical blob, given they don't have the weight of gravity on a flat tray," says Abby Dickes, director of marketing for NanoRacks, a company specialized in supporting plug-and-play experiments on the ISS. They've worked with Zero G Kitchen to develop the space oven to slot into their orbiting experiment rack. "The specialty microgravity trays our engineers designed are reminiscent of a silicon baking bag, with a space twist, so we imagine the cookie expanding in all directions." While this is the first time fresh cookies will be baked in space, it's far from the first space dessert. During Massimino's missions, he used his precious tiny personal allotment from NASA to pack hard Italian sweet biscuits for a taste of home. "I brought my own stash of biscotti from Michael's Bakery in Brooklyn," he recalls amid a list of desserts he savored in orbit. This brings up the next challenge that comes after baking cookies in space: eating cookies in space. "Crumbs are a problem in space," Massimino says, "You've got to be really careful." Most space food has a slightly liquid consistency so that it sticks to utensils and doesn't make a crumbly mess. "Something brittle like a biscotti is a real problem," he says. "They had to be bite-size so you could shove them in your mouth and chew them so that they wouldn't create a lot of crumbs." Although many Earth cookies are crumbly, these cookies have been engineered so they shouldn't present a delicious hazard in space. "There is a filtered vent to allow steam to get out, but otherwise it's contained so that we're containing any crumbs," Fichtenbaum says. The lack of crumbs is also part of the appeal of sending DoubleTree's cookie dough, he explains, which bakes into a compact, chewy cookie. "This particular cookie tends to stay together. It's not a very crumbly cookie." Those same vents that allow steam to escape will also allow the smell of freshly baked cookies to escape into the sealed Space Station, tempting astronauts to sneak a snack. But, devastatingly, taste-testing is not a part of the plan. "Launching food that is approved for astronaut consumption is a very intensive process," Dickes says. "This is the first time something is ever being baked from a raw state on-orbit, so there are plenty of science questions to be answered and that's the priority of this experiment." It sounds like a cruel joke that the first crew to bake and smell fresh space cookies won't be the first to eat them. But despite the apparent cruelty of not allowing astronauts to nibble on fresh-baked cookies, even when they're the bakers, it's unlikely this prohibition will spark rebellion. "It's not that NASA wants to deprive astronauts of a cookie," Massimino says. "They want to make sure that it's OK to eat: that it's cooked thoroughly and that there's no microbial problem with that cookie." But orbital taste tests will need to happen eventually, partially because everything tastes a bit different in zero gravity. "Our sense of smell is compromised a bit while we're in space," Massimino says. "Fluid tends to pool the upper extremities, including your head, and it makes you a little stuffy." That means smells are weaker, leading to the popularity of stronger flavors like hot sauce and honey, particularly during space missions. Space cookies are hopefully just the first step to freshly made desserts in orbit and beyond. Chocolate, another Earthbound mainstay, won't be anywhere near as easy. "There's a lot of science involved in making desserts," explains Rachael McKinley, an experimental chef developing new truffles and treats for Purdys Chocolatier. She started her career earning a degree in biochemistry, but found it difficult to focus until she discovered how to apply what she was learning to developing new chocolates. "Using food as a way to understand science is what ignited passion in me," she says. And what better thought experiment than chocolate in space? "We would have to completely change the way we make chocolate because we depend so much on gravity," McKinley says. When making chocolates by hand, it needs to be poured into a mold (which requires gravity), with the excess flowing out onto paper or collected to re-melt (which also requires gravity). Fully enclosing the mold would create new problems, as chocolate needs to cool in very specific ways for a smooth texture without sugar or fat blooms. "If you have a large block of chocolate, it is never going to cool properly because all the latent heat is trapped in the center," McKinley explains. "That part is going to crystallize incorrectly, and you're going to have a weird white splotchy bit in the middle." Dessert sounds like such a triviality when confronted by all the challenges of deep space, from keeping humans alive to repairing spacecraft. But the science learned from these edible experiments explore bigger engineering questions about thermodynamics, state changes, and even the psychology of supporting humans working in isolation. "Sometimes in our space world, we have trouble relating to the everyday person and struggle to explain why space exploration is so important," Dickes says. "So we really have a great opportunity here to teach the world about the Space Station, why cooking in space is so important for long-term exploration, and how space-science is one of the coolest, strangest, and most important things on our planet." "I think it's only the beginning. I think something like a hot pocket or Bagel Bites will be next," Massimino says. "You don't want to deprive people of good food."


The Cleveland Browns beefed up the defensive line with a local face in advance of Saturday night's Orange and Brown scrimmage at FirstEnergy Field. The team announced it has signed free agent DT Tracy Sprinkle. Sprinkle won't need directions to FirstEnergy. He is a Northeast Ohio native (Elyria HS) who played collegiately at Ohio State, finishing up following the 2017 season. Sprinkle went undrafted and spent time with the Carolina Panthers and Kansas City Chiefs before landing in the now-defunct AAF. To make room for Sprinkle, the Browns parted ways with undrafted rookie CB Jermaine Ponder, a lanky cornerback from St. Francis. MORE: This Patrick Mahomes throw from Chiefs practice can't be real 49ers without 5 starters on Day 7 of training camp Rookie safety Saquan Hampton standing out at Saints training camp Jay Gruden says the Redskins will choose a starting quarterback on Tuesday Five potential Jeremy Lin landing spots in free agency


The Rockets are just days away from a free agency period in which the team is hoping to improve on a roster that has lost to the Golden State Warriors in consecutive postseasons. A huge problem for the Rockets is that they're going into this summer handcuffed by the salaries of James Harden, Chris Paul and Clint Capela in a year that the team didn't have a single draft pick in a talented rookie class. Despite these obstacles, the Rockets still intend on aggressively pursuing the 76ers Jimmy Butler, according to ESPN . Once free agency starts on Sunday, the Houston Rockets are planning to recruit Jimmy Butler to push the Philadelphia 76ers for a sign-and-trade deal that would allow the All-Star forward to join James Harden and Chris Paul, league sources tell ESPN. In order for the Rockets to get Butler to Houston, they'd have to engage the 76ers in a sign-and-trade deal that would likely include Capela and Eric Gordon - two key pieces to the Rockets rotation. It's a steep price, but the Rockets would be willing to pay it for one of the best two-way wings in the NBA. Philly has no intention on letting Butler go, however. The 76ers can offer Butler a 5-year, $190 supermax at the start of free agency, meaning he'd have to really want to get out of Philly or really like a situation elsewhere. Butler has been rumored to have interest in the Lakers and the Knicks if either team were to offer a max-contract, but nothing on where his head is on the prospect of playing in Houston yet. MORE: This perfect Shaq impersonation at the NBA Awards show had fans in tears NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players Andre Iguodala: Mark Jackson was 'blackballed' from the NBA 3 adjustments the Raiders should make on offense in 2019 45 of the worst first-round NFL draft picks since 2010


If the internet is any indication, 60% of all gender reveals end in divorce disaster. Whether it be a simple swing and miss or a literal bomb that sparks a wildfire and gets you sued by the state of Arizona for a cool 8 mil , there's a good chance that if you're finding out the gender of your child the same time Twitter is, things went very, very sideways. Hell, even some of the successful examples like this Louisiana iteration starring an alligator and a watermelon constitute a fail by most working definitions of the term. Thus when Johnny Golf here decided to tee it up to discover the gender of his little Tiger and/or Annika, you just knew something wondrously, awful was going to happen and, sure enough, it did. Gentleman, ice packs at the ready. View the Instagram photo. Now any idiot on earth knows not to stand directly downrange (or safe stage left/right, depending on your buddy's miss), so unfortunately the blame for this heat-seeking crotch shot falls solely on the crotch shotee. Adding insult to injury is the fact the happy couple probably weren't too happy their brick-brained friend's plums, and not their new son, became the talk of the afternoon mimosas either. RELATED: Dustin Johnson helps a couple with their gender reveal in heartwarming fashion at a PGA Tour event But eventually the swelling will go down and the little brat will bask in gifts and frosting and Nickelodeon for as long as his tiny brain can fathom. Order will be restored to the universe and feeling to this man's loins, and everyone, even the internet, will forgive and forget. In the meantime, we anxiously await the upload of that second angle. Come on guys, the world needs to see it.


The Galaxy S8 may have launched several months before the iPhone X hit stores back in 2017, but it's Apple's phone that every company copied in the year that followed. Samsung was slow to improve the Galaxy S series' all-screen design. The Galaxy S9 didn't get a notch of its own and it didn't get any significant design improvements either, a decision that hurt Samsung's bottom line last year. The Galaxy S10, meanwhile, delivered a breath of fresh air as Samsung unveiled a daring hole-punch display design to take on notch displays and slide-out cameras. A version of that Infinity-O display will be used for the Galaxy Note 10 that's set to launch in a few weeks, but Samsung doesn't appear to be in a hurry to embrace what could be the next massive breakthrough when it comes to smartphone display innovations. A Samsung insider who has been quite critical of Samsung's design decisions took again to Twitter to bash his favorite company for its lack of courage. Ice Universe revealed in earlier tweets that smartphone makers including Samsung have been working on smartphone displays with extreme edge curvatures, as seen in the image above. The leaker followed up with more revelations about this "Full-Display 2.0" design, hinting that Huawei's Mate 30 Pro will be one of the first phones to get the new curves. The Vivo Nex 2, shown in a render above, might follow with similarly radical lines and an even better screen-to-body ratio. What the render tells us is that the front camera will be either hidden under the display, a kind of selfie cam technology that's already been teased by other Chinese smartphone makers including Oppo and Xiaomi, or placed on a slide-out mechanism. Furthermore, the phone doesn't seem to feature any physical buttons if this render is based on accurate information. We've speculated in the past that edge displays with extreme curvature might force smartphone makers to ditch physical buttons in favor of capacitive ones. Moreover, some rumors said the Note 10 and Pixel 4 would not feature power or volume buttons, but subsequent reports said that won't be the case. Both Samsung and Google have supposedly tested out Note and Pixel designs without buttons. It's unclear at this time whether those prototypes also featured curved displays. But as much as Ice Universe seems to hate Samsung's decision not to go forward with this novel screen design, there is one major reason to worry about displays with such curves. What happens with this new display when you drop it on one of its sides? Will the curved glass be able to survive accidental drops? The Galaxy S11 design hasn't leaked yet, and it's probably too early for it to happen. If Ice's revelations are based on accurate information, then the phone might not deliver a radical design change next year. One thing to remember is that Samsung is testing out new smartphone innovations on mid-range phones from the Galaxy A series. That means any massive changes planned for the Galaxy S or Note phones will probably hit new Galaxy A releases first. Sign up for BGR's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .


The Chiefs won the AFC West and advanced to the AFC title game last year thanks in large part to the most prolific offense in the league, but their defense didn't hit the same highs and the team used January's overtime loss to the Patriots as a precursor for big changes to the unit. Steve Spagnuolo is now the coordinator and they brought in players like safety Tyrann Mathieu , defensive end Frank Clark , cornerback Bashaud Breeland , defensive end Alex Okafor , linebacker Darron Lee and defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah to help craft a new look on that side of the ball. Mathieu said during an appearance on FS1 last week that he thinks the result will be a better unit, although he acknowledged that there's a lot of work to do to make good on that prediction. "I think we've got a great challenge ahead," Mathieu said, via the Kansas City Star . "I told our group, 'This is going to be a tough hill to climb, especially where those guys were last year.' They brought myself and Frank Clark in, and I think anytime you can bring two guys in that really have a chip on their shoulders, an edge, a certain personality, you can rub off on a lot of guys in a positive way. I think that's why they brought me in, Kansas City, for one was to really kind of raise the tide of everybody around me, and so it's going to be a fun season." Mathieu said he's not used to being a "little brother" to his team's offense, but that's certainly what the defense is in Kansas City these days. If the age gap is a little closer than it was last year, the fun season that Mathieu is looking for will be likelier to unfold come the fall.


MOSCOW, July 9 (Reuters) - More than 200 years after he died of his battlefield wounds in Russia, archaeologists believe they have found the remains of one of Napoleon Bonaparte's favorite generals buried in a park beneath the foundations of a dance floor. General Charles Etienne Gudin, whose name is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, died aged 44 on August 22, 1812, after being hit by a cannon ball during Napoleon's unsuccessful invasion of Russia. Gudin was personally known to and respected by Napoleon, and after his death his heart was cut out and carried to Paris to be placed in a chapel in the French capital's Pere Lachaise cemetery. A bust of his likeness resides in the Palace of Versailles, and a Paris street bears his name. A team of French and Russian archaeologists say they discovered what they believe to be Gudin's missing remains on July 6 during a dig in the Russian city of Smolensk, 400 km (250 miles) west of Moscow. Records from the period indicate that Gudin's battlefield injuries meant he had to have his left leg amputated and also suffered damage to his right leg. Archaeologists say the remains which they found in a coffin are consistent with those injuries and believe "with a high degree of probability" that they have found the aristocrat and veteran of both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. French historian and archaeologist Pierre Malinovsky, who played a central role in the discovery, has hailed the find as the culmination of a long search. "It's a historic moment not only for me but for I think for our two countries," Malinovsky told Smolensk newspaper Rabochy Put (Worker's Journey), saying Napoleon had personally known Gudin since his childhood. "Napoleon was one of the last people to see him alive which is very important, and he's the first general from the Napoleonic period that we have found." The Russian military-historical society, which was also involved in the dig, said the find, if confirmed, would be a sensation. "It's possible that we'll have to identify the remains with the aid of a DNA test which could take from several months to a year," it said. "The general's descendants are following the news." (Editing by Mark Heinrich)


Read on for the most recent top news you may have missed in Boston. Boston man guilty of transporting women for prostitution A Boston man has pleaded guilty to transporting three women, one of whom was a minor, across state lines to engage in prostitution. Read the full story on Houston Chronicle . Boston Road ramp to southbound 495 reopens after crash The crash involving a car and a motorcycle in Westford forced officials to close down parts of the road on Wednesday. Read the full story on Boston 25 News . Red Sox in second place for first time since March The defending World Series champions have recovered from a 3-8 start and improved to a season-high 10 games over .500 at 56-46, moving one percentage point ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays. Read the full story on 7News - WHDH Boston . This story was created automatically using data about news stories on social media from CrowdTangle , then reviewed by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


There's the old joke setup 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' well one Florida Deputy had to deal with a turtle who wouldn't get off the road! Buzz60's Mercer Morrison has the story.


Emails between top executives and board members at the University of Maryland Medical System show a concerted effort in recent months to avoid sharing unscripted information about the lucrative business deals the system had with some of those board members . The emails, obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a Maryland Public Information Act request to state Sen. Nancy King, show that she and other board members were urged by executives to instead use "talking points" prepared by the system's communications team and media avoidance strategies from the Fallston Group   a crisis communications team retained by the system. UMMS has declined to answer questions for months about its contracts with board members, pending an internal review of them by the California-based firm Nygren Consulting . That review is due this month , officials have said. One of the talking points, provided to board members in April, states that the system's contracts with its own board members   some valued in the millions and some never competitively bid   had "no impact whatsoever on the quality of care we're able to provide to our patients on a day-to-day basis." An April memo from the Fallston Group, which calls itself "The Reputation Agency," was titled, "Preparing for the Worst: Successfully Navigating a Media Ambush." Document: Crisis management coaching emails from UMMS » The group provided instructions for a variety of scenarios   such as when contacted by a reporter by phone or when "ambushed on camera." It advised board members interested in avoiding the latter to "maintain low to no visibility" and change their daily patterns so as not to "become predictable." The company advised board members who are approached on camera to stop and "directly address" the reporter. "DO NOT interview while walking, getting into a car, elevator, front door of your home, etc." The advice was sent to board members by Acting UMMS CEO John Ashworth   who took over in March after CEO Robert Chrencik took a leave of absence before later resigning   following the interview of a former board member outside his home by a reporter with WBFF. Asked about the emails and the system's relationship with the Fallston Group, Michael Schwartzberg, a UMMS spokesman, said such advice for board members is common in the business world, and that UMMS had the Fallston Group on retainer prior to the The Sun's reporting on the board members' contracts in March. He declined to say how much UMMS pays the Fallston Group, calling it's contract with the firm confidential. In a statement, the Fallston Group's CEO Rob Weinhold said the firm's client relationships are "both proprietary and confidential," but that its general approach is "to encourage accurate, forthright transparency and decision-making, within the proper context and timeframe." Another email sent to board members in April advised them to avoid questions from a Sun reporter. "Kevin Rector, a Baltimore Sun reporter, is writing a story and is calling many UMMS board members for comment," wrote Jerry Wollman, the system's chief administrative officer. "We request that, if contacted and you speak to him, you simply state that you are not at liberty to comment and refer him to UMMS media relations... "If he leaves a message, we advise not calling him back." krector@baltsun.com twitter.com/rectorsun


These not-so-obvious indicators will make your home a target for thieves. Leaving Trash Visible in Garbage Cans Setting out the box from your new 60-inch HDTV or high-end gaming console on the curb is basically advertising the fact that those items are in your home. As electronics are the second thing burglars go for (cash is number one), this makes your home an attractive target, according to the study. So buy a cheap box cutter and invest the 30 seconds it takes to break down large boxes and bundle them together so their labels can't be seen. Plus, your garbage man will thank you! Find out what else your garbage collector wants you to know. Sometimes Just Living on Your Street Homes in high-visibility places are far less likely to be broken into. There are simply too many potential ways to be seen. But townhomes, houses in the middle of the block, or houses in a cul-de-sac are much better targets. This is especially true if your property backs up to a forest, open lot, or other unguarded area. The trick, according to Secure Life, is to make your house as difficult as possible to access. This means installing high fences and lots of lighting. Learn 13 sneaky things FBI agents do to protect their homes . Posting Vacation Pics Forty percent of people admit posting pics while out of town, according to Nationwide. And while putting your vacation pictures online might get you a lot of likes, it also notifies your friends and acquaintances that you re now far from home, making your house a prime target for anyone with ill intentions or just an opportunistic streak. Instead, make sure your social media profiles aren t public, and wait to post your beautiful beach selfies until you get home. Here are some other things you should never post on social media for the sake of your own safety and your home's safety . Mailbox It takes two minutes online or on the phone to put a hold on your mail while you re gone and subvert the number one signal burglars look for: an overflowing porch or mailbox. These are the hiding spots burglars check first . Save yourself a trip to the mailbox by installing an alert system like this. Your Yard Gives a Lot of Clues Love those flowers . That says you have taste…and taste means there are nice things inside. Those yard toys your kids leave out always make me wonder what type of gaming system they have. By the way, this is the most common time for burglaries  and it's not at night. Letting Newspapers and Flyers Build Up Yes, burglars really do look for newspapers piled up on the driveway. And they might leave a pizza flyer in your front door to see how long it takes you to remove it. Check out these 12 unusual things postal carriers see every day . Not Locking the Door According to SafeGuardTheWorld, a professional preventative security company, around 30 percent of burglaries involve a burglar entering through an unlocked door. It seems silly to have to say it but people forget to lock the door sometimes and it becomes ripe for the picking. Try these 13 inexpensive ways to theft-proof your home . Leaving a Window Cracked You might want to keep the house cool and save some money by not running the air conditioning but your setting your home up as a target even if the window is left open a crack. Here are 10 sensible ways to save on cooling costs . Having a Wide Open Backyard A backyard without a fence or one that opens up to a wooded area is prime for burglars to target. It's relatively easy to move in and out of, plus the woods will make an escape easier. Try some maintenance-free fencing if you feel the need to create a deterrence. Keeping a Window A/C Unit Window units are great at cooling smaller spaces but they're also great for thieves to knock out of the way and grab any loot inside a home. Leaving Expensive Stuff in Sight It should go without saying but anything of value shouldn't be left in view from the outside. Burglars will often case a house before breaking in and if your home has valuable items out, the likelihood of it getting ribbed just went up. You need to know the 50 places thieves will never look in order to be safe. Forgetting to Lock the Garage Door Be sure to lock each garage door, including the one that leads to the backyard because thieves will use any entry point to gain access. Check out how thieves can attack your garage and how to secure it. Leave Spare Keys in Obvious Places You might to consult this list of obvious hiding places before deciding where to keep a spare key because burglars are definitely going to check the cliche spots. Instead try these secret hiding places for spare keys and other valuables . Forgetting to Keep Up With Appearances If you normally leave your blinds or drapes open during the day and close them the day you leave for vacation, that could be a calling card for burglars that no one is home. 'I recommend a mix of open, partially open, and close,' says Emily Long, safety expert at SafeWise . 'Open blinds that provide full views of TVs, computers, and other valuables can tempt burglars, while partially open blinds provide privacy and security as well as let interior light out, giving the illusion that you are home.' Try one of these tricks with your blinds to keep it cool inside during the summer. Leaving an Opening Through the Dog Door When burglars can t get in through human entrances to your house, they may try to get in through the animal entrances. Robert Sollars, security expert and creator of robertdsollars.com , knows this all too well. 'There are innumerable instances of doors being secured but the burglar coming in through the kitty door,' he advises. 'Not all burglars are 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds. They can slither through those openings as well as a snake.' One of the burglaries Nancy Gretzinger experienced was committed in this way. 'They came in a medium-small doggie door,' she said. So, pet owners, keep your pet doors secure as well. If worse comes to worst and a burglar does manage to enter your home, make sure your valuables are not in these hiding spots burglars always check first . Try these 40 pet projects to show your favorite canine or feline some love. Leaving Fresh Snow If it snows while you re out of town, get a neighbor to create car and foot tracks into the house. Virgin drifts in the driveway are a dead giveaway. Here's another way to install a reliable security system in just one day . DIY home security systems will help to protect your home and your family. Glass Doors are Thieves' Best Friends If decorative glass is part of your front entrance, don't let your alarm company install the control pad where a burglar can see if it's set. That makes it too easy. Glass doors will rob you in energy costs, too. See how to save money by better insulating a patio door. Close Your Blinds Burglars love looking in your windows. They're looking for signs that you re home or gaming systems they'd like. Burglars will drive or walk through your neighborhood at night, before you close the blinds, just to pick their targets. Hopefully you have a friendly neighbor but beware of the things they aren't telling you . Forgetting to Secure Patio Doors Patio door locks are easy to pick. Placing a heavy-duty stick in the door track will bar the door closed, but it looks crude and it's inconvenient to remove every time you want to open the door. Fortunately, there's a better way to get the security you need.Andersen Corp.'s auxiliary foot lock ( andersenwindows.com ) fastens along the bottom of the door and has a bolt that fits into a grommet to hold the door secure. A similar lock, the Door Guardian ( thedoorguardian.com ) attaches at the top of the door. Both locks allow the door to open 3 in. without compromising security. Installation takes about 10 minutes. Screw the bracket containing the pin to the door, then drill holes and insert grommets in the track for the pin to slide into. Need to replace your patio door? Here's how to do it. Keeping the Clicker in the Car A thief who breaks into your car can grab the remote for easy access to your garage. This isn't just a problem when your car is parked in the driveway; the registration card in your glove box gives a crook your address.So get rid of the remote on your visor and buy a keychain remote. You can easily take it with you every time you leave the car. Home centers stock only a small selection of remotes, but you'll find more online. Start your search by typing in the brand of your opener, followed by 'remote.' Flowers Start to Wilt While your friends and neighbors can pick up the mail, grab the paper, create tracks in the snow, etc. Your flowers might get overlooked. A thief in the area will wise up to what's going on when they spot a few wilted flowers. Keep the bushes in your yard from wilting too with these tips. Lawn Hasn't Been Mowed For a While If you have someone routinely mow your lawn you don't have to worry about it overgrowing while your on vacation but if you think you can get away with it for a long time, think again. Thieves will notice just as quickly as your neighbors what an eyesore your lawn has become. The neighbors might talk about it with each other but a thief is going to use it as an excuse to check in on the rest of your house. Leaving the House Dim Some people want to leave a dim light on while they're away on vacation as a deterrent to break-ins. The debate rages on whether it's better to leave lights on or off but one thing's for sure, those dim lights at night are going to be dim during the day and any smart burglar will notice that. Find out the other secrets burglars don't want you to know. Bushes Are Overgrown Overgrown bushes leave a lot of hiding spots for burglars who are planning a heist. It might be a pain to trim them back but it'll make your yard look better and improve security. Trimming shrubs should be one of the 14 things they do every month. Home Business If you have a home business there are additional precautions to take since there will be an additional accumulation of assets, cash might be on hand, there might not be a safe or thousands of dollars of product might be sitting in a garage. A thief will spot a home business that does or doesn't have signage. Try out these home office storage ideas to make it easier. Leaving Stools in the Backyard They make reaching windows a lot easier for would-be thieves. Leaving Radio On Just like with leaving the lights dimmed, leaving a radio on or even on a timer isn't going to deter a thief. It might even attract them if the radio plays non-stop. Many thieves still knock on the door to make sure no one is home before they enter a house. Don't Keep Keys on a Hook Next to the Door Keys in that close of proximity to a window is a terrible idea because that will give a burglar access to all sorts of goodies in addition to what's in the house. Here's why you need to wrap your car fob in foil. Having Neighbors Over and Neighbors' Friends Word can get out quickly who's got what in a house. It might not be whoever was in the house is a burglar but word could get down to a person looking for some quick cash. If you like to have people over to watch big games, here are some great tips on how to fit everyone in so it's not claustrophobic. Put Tools Away Don't leave ladders next to the shed or next to the garage, don't make the burglars job easier. Obituaries in the Paper A poster on Reddit mentioned that their deceased grandfather's home got burglarized the day of the grandfather's funeral. It might be helpful to have someone keep an eye on the house. Toys in Yard It means there are children and likely a mother with jewelry. Here's a great-looking built-in jewelry closet you can keep some of those items in. Corner House A house with one neighbor is a lot more attractive than one with two to a burglar. Hired Help A maid or tradesman could be giving out information about your place. Here's how to hire a contractor. Not Doing Anything After a Burglary in the Area Burglars often return to the same area after the initial burglary. It's important to scout a neighborhood before you buy a house there .


Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was left in awe at the size of new signing Sepp van den Berg after meeting the 17-year-old for the first time on Friday. The centre-back arrived from PEC Zwolle in June for an initial fee of £1.3m, having made 22 appearances for the former in the Eredivisie last campaign. At 1.89m (6'2), the Dutchman is an imposing figure, though compatriot and Reds talisman Virgil van Dijk stands four centimetres taller than the youngster, who has been tipped for big things. "Let's get started"  Jürgen Klopp x Sepp van den Berg #LFCPreSeason   Liverpool FC (@LFC) July 6, 2019 Van den Berg could well partner the PFA Player of the Year in Liverpool matches next season, with the colossus clearly leaving a strong impression on his new coach. In a video posted to the club's official Twitter account of when the pair met, Klopp said: "Sepp, nice to meet you. My god   tall. That's impressive; it's different when you see only in images. It's nice to have you here, how are you?" The defender responded, stating: "I'm good. I'm excited, but a little bit nervous. Yesterday when I came from the airport, already four people came to me so it's crazy." Van den Berg is expected to be involved with the youth teams on Merseyside as he begins his stay in England, though it would be no surprise to see him given a handful of chances in the senior side given his physical prowess. A Premier League outing is doubtful, with his likeliest route into the first-team setup being domestic cup competitions, as Klopp chose to field a markedly young side in the early stages of both the League and FA Cups in 2018/19.


WASHINGTON - Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has withdrawn from consideration to head the U.S. military, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, stoking uncertainty about the leadership of the Pentagon at a moment of rising tension with Iran. Trump said the secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, will be named as the new acting defense secretary. Esper had been considered a leading contender for the job if Shanahan was ultimately not confirmed. But the decision, which Trump said owed to Shanahan's desire to spend more time with his family, promises to prolong what has already been the longest period without a confirmed secretary of defense. Trump's critics had already questioned whether Shanahan, without Senate confirmation, had the power to stand up to Trump if he had a difference of opinion on military strategy. The former Boeing executive did not have prior experience in national security matters before he was picked by then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to be his deputy. Shanahan had been in the job, in an acting capacity, since Mattis stepped down at the end of 2018. Trump's announcement of Shanahan's decision came shortly after USA Today reported that the FBI had been examining a nine-year-old domestic dispute involving Shanahan and his then-wife as part of a background check for the job as Pentagon chief. The newspaper reported that Shanahan said he "never laid a hand on" his former wife. But USA Today reported that both he and his wife had claimed they had been punched by the other. Pentagon officials could not be immediately reached for comment about the report or Trump's announcement.


It's official: UFC parent company Endeavor is going public. Two months after rumors of an initial public offering by year's end, Endeavor, the entertainment giant fronted by Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company plans to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange as EDR. The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter . The publicly available S-1 form outlines the company's immediate and longterm plans, along with its business position, including a breakdown of its overall financial performance. The form outlined Endeavor's vast entertainment parternships and its unique position to capitalize on the ever-evolving market for content, which helped the company generate $3.61 billion in revenue for 2018 with a net income of $100.1 million after adjustments. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITA) stood at $551.1 million. Performance within its entertainment and sports division, which includes the UFC, stood at $2.27 billion with an adjusted EBITA of $439.4 million. Over the one-year period between December 2016 and December 2017, the report said growth in sports "was primarily due to the impact of the UFC acquisition, increased revenue from media rights and a higher number of events and increased sponsorships at these events." The form also identified several risks to future performance, including high debt, unpredictable demand among consumers and media buyers, shifting distribution methods, and negative publicity. Specific risks of concussion litigation, collective bargaining, and the ongoing class-action lawsuit against the UFC were also represented as a threat to Endeavor's business. Endeavor purchased the UFC in 2016 for $4.025 billion in one of the biggest sports acquisitions to date. The company was valued at $4 billion one year ago, though UFC president Dana White has claimed the value has grown to $7 billion. White and the UFC's previous owners, casino magnates Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, resisted offers to go public. White was skeptical the fight promotion would go public "while I'm here anyway." Earlier this year, the UFC struck a new long-term broadcast deal with ESPN that stabilized the promotion's primary revenue driver of pay-per-view. For more on the upcoming UFC schedule, visit the UFC Rumors section of the site. MORE: Here are the 27 'Jeopardy!' clues James Holzhauer has gotten wrong NBA Free Agency 2019: The top players 2019 OTAs: Four Cowboys standing out early in team activities New Packers OLB coach raves about rookie Rashan Gary Things Don't Sound Good Between James Harden, Chris Paul, and the Rockets


Interested in finding out about the freshest new spots in Phoenix? From a cookie shop to a nutrition business, read on for a list of the newest businesses to open for business near you. Crumbl Cookies Crumbl Cookies is a bakery that recently opened at 4910 E. Ray Road in Ahwatukee Foothills. This spot delivers cookies straight to your door until midnight and features a cookie menu that rotates weekly   current flavors include midnight mint, Nutella sea salt, cookies and cream, chilled sugar and warm chocolate chip. Need some ice cream to go with your sweet treat? Crumbl has you covered there, too. IV Nutrition Now IV Nutrition Now is an IV, hydration and nutritionist spot, offering vitamins, supplements and more, that recently opened at 4902 E. Shea Blvd., Suite 105 in Paradise Valley. The business offers a variety of services, including express drips, full intravenous drips and intramuscular injections to help the body restore health and energy, as well as offset oxidative stress and free radicals, according to its website . Moku Hawaiian Grill Head over to 4302 E. Ray Road, Suite 114 in Ahwatukee Foothills and you'll find Moku Hawaiian Grill , a Hawaiian spot. The eatery serves up customizable bowls with a choice of white or brown rice, protein (pulehu chicken, kalua pork, teriyaki steak and more) and a side like sweet corn, edamame, kimchi slaw or macaroni salad. This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.


Asylum officers worry they're being forced to send some Central Americans to wait in Mexico   even when they're in danger of persecution there. The first time that one immigration officer interviewed an asylum seeker under new Trump administration protocols, the officer went back to their hotel room, turned up the shower as hot as it would go, and tried to wash off the feeling of being manipulated. The officer had just listened to the Central American's story of threats from drug cartels during his journey through Mexico en route to the US, and believed the man's life was in danger. "This was a guy truly afraid he was going to be murdered, and frankly, he might be," the officer told Vox. But the officer "wasn't even allowed to make an argument" that the asylum seeker should be allowed to stay in the US to pursue his case. They signed   feeling they had no choice   a form stating the migrant wasn't likely to be persecuted in Mexico, and therefore could be safely returned. Many asylum officers are concerned that the integrity of their office is at stake   along with their names. "We were enlisted to give our blessing through these interviews," another officer told Vox. "It's our names on the forms." But "it seems like all of this is lip service." Asylum officers have raised concerns with their union. Vox spoke with several of them in their capacity as union members, in meetings facilitated and attended by the head of the union representing immigration officers in US Citizenship and Immigration Services, about how the new procedures have changed their jobs. (Vox granted them anonymity because they fear retaliation from superiors for speaking to the press.) For decades, officers made judgment calls on whether a person could stay in the US to await an asylum hearing. Under the new rules, officers say they effectively have no power to do so. "I'm not adjudicating that case. It's like someone else sticking their hand inside me, like a glove," the officer told me. An asylum officer's primary job is to make sure an asylum seeker wouldn't be persecuted if they're turned away from the US: to uphold the fundamental principle of refugee law called non-refoulement, that a government must not send a migrant back to a country where they'd be persecuted or imperiled. As the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program has expanded since it was introduced in January and the lawsuit over its legality has progressed slowly, many asylum officers have gotten increasingly uncomfortable with their role in the process. They worry that they're being used to whitewash the program, and claim they don't actually have as much power to allow migrants to stay in the US if they're in danger as the Trump administration has publicly stated. One asylum officer described the interviews as "pro forma"   just for show. Asylum officers are speaking out Asylum officers are trained to evaluate migrants' stories, to determine whether they should be allowed to stay in the US or sent back to their home countries. Above all, they're the front line protecting the US from violating non-refoulement . The official documents outlining MPP say that asylum officers and their supervisors are supposed to make the decision about whether someone qualifies to stay in the US. "Every MPP assessment is subject to review by a Supervisory Asylum Officer before the assessment is deemed final and the individual is notified of the result," a USCIS official told Vox. "If they meet the standard set forth in the guidance"   higher than the standard used in traditional asylum screenings   "they will not be returned to Mexico to await their next hearing." But the union members who spoke to Vox said that decisions to let an asylum seeker stay are often reviewed   and blocked or overturned   by asylum headquarters. Decisions to send the asylum seeker back to Mexico, on the other hand, don't appear to get reviewed at all. (USCIS did not respond to specific questions about the review process.) As unprecedented numbers of Central American families come to the US-Mexico border, most of whom enter the asylum process, the Trump administration has put asylum officers in the crosshairs. The White House is pressuring the Department of Homeland Security to raise the standards for traditional screening interviews, and reportedly laying the groundwork for Border Patrol agents   who are assumed to be "tougher" on migrants   to conduct those interviews instead. To human rights advocates, those plans risk running afoul of international law. The administration's rhetoric, from President Trump's tendency to mock asylum seekers at rallies to the claims of pervasive "fraud" in the system, conjures a future in which officers on the ground will be forced to refuse safe haven in the US to people who may well face peril when sent back. But the asylum officers who spoke to Vox under the auspices of their union believe they've already seen that future   they see a US asylum system that has all but turned its back on people fleeing persecution in their home countries. And even if the specific "return to Mexico" policy is held up in court, they worry a fundamental norm has been broken that can't be repaired. Asylum seekers are "scared, unprepared, exhausted"   and don't understand they could be sent back to Mexico For decades, someone coming to the US without papers to seek asylum has been given a screening interview with an asylum officer to examine their fear of returning to their home countries. If they pass, they're allowed to formally apply for asylum before an immigration judge, and stay in the US in the meantime. In January, under the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Trump administration started something different   part of its serial efforts to stem a growing tide of Central American asylum seekers. It started sending some Central American asylum seekers   first a handful a week, then dozens, now hundreds   back to Mexico after initial processing, with instructions to show up at a port of entry at a particular date for a hearing before an immigration judge on their asylum case. The policy has raised serious concerns among lawyers and human rights advocates, who worry that there's no way for immigrants to obtain American lawyers while in Mexico; that they may not be able to return to the US in time for their hearings; and, fundamentally, that northern Mexico isn't necessarily a safe place for Central Americans fleeing persecution to be   that the US would essentially be violating the principle of non-refoulement. That last concern is what, in theory, asylum officers are supposed to prevent. The role that asylum officers play in the MPP process is very different from the one they typically play. Normally, a migrant has to pass a screening interview with an asylum officer in order to apply for asylum; if they fail, they're deported to their home country. Under MPP, though, migrants are automatically allowed to apply for asylum before a judge in the US   the asylum officer just determines whether they are sent back to Mexico in the meantime. As a result, both asylum officers and the migrants they interview are unprepared. In the early days of MPP, the program was shrouded in secrecy   asylum officers sent to the border to conduct interviews weren't trained on the new standards until they arrived. As the program has expanded, most asylum officers who worked at the Arlington USCIS office have been trained   but the training hardly answered their questions. Union members described it as a cursory PowerPoint that summarized what they already knew from official documents about MPP. One union member summarized the end of the training as, "'Any questions?' 'Yeah, what the hell are we doing?'" Furthermore, union members knew of at least one case in which an asylum officer who had missed the training session was told they had to do MPP interviews anyway, applying a standard they'd never used and never been trained in. The asylum seekers they were speaking to were even less ready: "scared, unprepared, exhausted immigrants." Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, typically the first US immigration authorities that these asylum seekers encounter when they cross into the US, don't ask asylum seekers whether they're afraid of being returned to Mexico, and will only refer them to an asylum officer if they voluntarily mention they're afraid of return. One asylum officer told Vox that a CBP agent said they were "instructed not to ask" about fear of return to Mexico; another CBP agent told another asylum officer, "We don't want to spoon-feed them" any supposed asylum magic words. Screening interviews already take place in less-than-ideal conditions for discussing sensitive matters. The migrant is in a spare room at a CBP holding facility. At one facility, asylum officers jokingly called one of those rooms "the torture chamber" and complained about gurgling drainage; at another, a union member said they could hear children's screams through the walls. For the first few weeks of MPP, asylum officers conducted interviews in person, but they're now conducted like most screening interviews are: over the phone. Crucially, union members said, interviewees didn't understand why they were being asked about Mexico. They were afraid of being returned to their home country, and tried to stress that. One union member told Vox that asylum seekers "often don't know why they're talking about Mexico instead of Honduras or El Salvador." If anything, asylum seekers appeared to know far less about Mexico, a country they'd only spent a few days traveling through, than the officers interviewing them. That meant interviewees couldn't give detailed enough answers to make a persuasive case to stay in the US. Part of an asylum screening is determining whether a migrant would be protected from persecutors by law enforcement; asylum officers know that Mexican police are often compromised or indifferent, but asylum seekers who've barely spent time in Mexico often do not. A new legal standard that's all but impossible to meet Here's how it normally works: After an asylum interview, the officer summarizes the facts of the case and reads them back to the applicant. Then the officer writes up a legal analysis that considers whether the interviewee is describing persecution (of a specific ethnicity, nationality, political opinion, religion, or "particular social group") or torture, and how likely it is that they'd face such persecution or torture if returned to their home country. For most screening interviews, the interviewee must show a "credible fear"   a deliberately generous standard designed to err on the side of non-refoulement. "If I want to go negative on someone" in a credible fear screening, says an asylum officer, "I have to turn over every rock" to demonstrate they lack a credible argument. The officer submits the legal analysis with their final ruling on whether the interviewee should be allowed to avoid deportation and seek legal status in the US. Here's how MPP is working: "You're not adjudicating sh--" one union member told Vox in disgust. "You're documenting a conversation." Remember, everyone returned to Mexico under MPP is still claiming asylum in the US, so the traditional screening standards   used to determine whether to allow someone to claim asylum or deport them   don't apply. Instead, DHS has decided that a migrant put into the MPP process has to show that they are "more likely than not" to face persecution in Mexico in order to be kept in the US before their hearings. That's a higher standard than either "credible fear" or "reasonable fear." And it's not a standard that asylum officers are familiar with. One union member told Vox that when they asked what legal authority the MPP program was using, a superior pointed to the statute on "withholding of removal"   a standard migrants are usually given a full court case to prove they meet. "I'm not an immigration judge," the union member replied, "so that doesn't help me." Compounding it all is the fact that union members said they were instructed to tell asylum seekers that there would be "no room" for a lawyer during their interview (though lawyers have been able to observe MPP screenings in rare cases). In theory, a "more likely than not" standard sounds generous   a migrant could pass it even if there's a 49 percent possibility that they won't be persecuted. But in practice, union members say, it's all but impossible for applicants to meet. "The legal standard requires such specific and persuasive testimony that it leaves virtually no doubt   not 'could,' 'would,' or 'might,' but 'will be,'" one union member told Vox. "No one can satisfy that burden." Another union member said it felt like the standard was closer to 90 or 95 percent than 51. Exhausted and confused immigrants simply "don't have the tools" to give that testimony and satisfy doubts about whether they'd face persecution in Mexico, one officer said. They certainly don't have the ability to articulate a "particular social group" they were being targeted as a member of. In normal screenings, that wouldn't be a problem. "All of our training for all these years teaches us how to identify particular social groups," union head Michael Knowles says. "You may not be able to Google it, but if you're talking to someone and they name the elements," an asylum officer can make the determination. But with MPP, asylum officers aren't being asked to synthesize answers or provide any legal analysis; they're just checking boxes on a form and submitting it to their supervisors for review. In other words, the training asylum officers are given to elicit testimony and translate it into legal language   to take the experiences and fears of traumatized immigrants and apply legal standards that the migrants themselves have never heard of   is cast aside. "They're basically saying, 'Don't pay attention to what we trained in,'" Knowles says. Approvals are rare. The ones that are granted are scrutinized by higher-ups. Here's how it typically works: An asylum officer's write-up is reviewed by their supervisor. These reviewers check whether the write-up is technically accurate and whether their reasoning is "legally sufficient," but they're generally supposed to defer to the judgment of the officer doing the interview. If a supervisor disagrees with a final decision, they can ask the asylum officer to go back and redo it. Knowles himself, who has been an asylum officer since the creation of a dedicated asylum corps in the early 1990s, has had only three cases where a supervisor disagreed with his assessment, and "in none of those cases," he says, "was I forced to do something I didn't believe in." Here's how MPP is working: "If you want to go positive, you will face Herculean efforts to get it through," one union member told Vox. "If your supervisor says yes, headquarters will probably say no." Every union member Vox spoke to said that even though most of the decisions in MPP screening interviews are negative, given the high legal standard, the rare positives are the only ones getting reviewed at asylum headquarters. One union member told Vox that a top USCIS staffer had claimed all MPP cases were "eventually" reviewed, but none of the union members who spoke to Vox had ever heard of any questioning or review of a negative decision. "I have no idea what it could be," one said. Multiple union members reported that a supervisor was told not to issue any positive MPP decisions without checking with the other officers on their team, and with headquarters. One reported that the supervisor was told that "the front office"   upper-level management   "has eyes on these cases," and that "they've already been complaining about you granting people." In two other cases, union members said, both the asylum officer conducting the interview and the supervisor agreed that an interviewee who had been kidnapped by cartels while traveling through Mexico shouldn't be sent back, but headquarters overruled them. In both cases, part of the explanation for the denial was that the cartels had not explicitly named the "particular social group" identified by the asylum officer as the reason they were targeting the migrant   something that, again, officers say they are usually trusted to identify themselves. Typically, one union member said, asylum officers are taught to use a "reasonable man" standard   if a reasonable person could conclude, based on the facts available, that someone was being targeted based on group membership, that is sufficient to allow them to stay. (In one of the cases overruled by headquarters, for example, the asylum seeker was treated differently from his fellow captives   something that under a "reasonable man" standard could have been used to demonstrate he was being targeted whether the cartels explicitly said so or not.) But in this case, they said, "I wasn't allowed to go positive" on those grounds. "I'm afraid this is the end" The asylum corps was already feeling ground down before MPP went into effect: They've had to implement other Trump administration efforts to restrict asylum, from DOJ decisions limiting domestic and gang violence claims to the short-lived "asylum ban," while doing more screening interviews than ever. But to many of them, MPP feels like a bright line has been crossed: They are no longer being trusted to do their jobs, no longer allowed to use the discretion they are supposed to have as adjudicators to protect the integrity of the asylum system while upholding the principle of non-refoulement. A senior union member said that three younger colleagues had come to them in tears over their involvement in MPP, saying, "I don't know that I can do this." They're waiting to see what happens in the ongoing litigation over the program. But even if MPP is put on hold, they feel, there will just be some other attempt to override their discretion and force them to push people back   something that MPP has shown is possible. A younger asylum officer told Vox, "I want to be able to say, when I'm Michael [Knowles]'s age, that I've been working in this field as long as he has"   longer than the younger asylum officer has even been alive. "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to," they told me. "I'm afraid this is the end of the program."


It would be a surprise at this point if Kevin Durant decided to re-sign with the Warriors this summer, and there has been no shortage of reasons cited for why the soon-to-be free agent is looking to leave Golden State. Could the head coach be among those reasons? Steve Popper of Newsday spoke with several NBA executives about Durant at the NBA combine last week, and the general consensus is that Durant is a lock to sign with the New York Knicks. According to one exec, two of the issues Durant is having in Golden State are that he is tired of "prodding" from Steve Kerr and knows the Warriors will always be Stephen Curry's team. With the Knicks, Durant would be the centerpiece of a tortured franchise rather than a superstar who joined a championship team just to get a ring. It's no secret that Durant is a sensitive guy. He reminded us of that after the Warriors' over the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 3 on Saturday by blasting a fan on Instagram for what seemed like no reason . As Durant continues to sit with a calf injury, the Warriors continue to win games. They could probably win a championship without him this year just as they did before he arrived, and it would not be hard to imagine that bothering someone as thin-skinned as KD. As for Kerr and his alleged "prodding," it's unclear exactly what that refers to. Perhaps Durant is sick of playing in Kerr's heavy ball-movement system now that he has two championship rings. Whatever the case, all signs continue to point to him leaving the Warriors this summer. Related slideshow: Best of the NBA playoffs (Provided by imagn)


Chris Maragos, a special teams ace who most recently played for the Philadelphia Eagles but was a member of the Seattle Seahawks' Super Bowl-winning team in 2013, announced his retirement via Twitter. What an amazing ride, thankful for everyone who made it so great! pic.twitter.com/8X3icR3kGI - Chris Maragos (@ChrisMaragos) July 16, 2019 Maragos last played during the 2017 season, winning his second Super Bowl ring as a member of the Eagles. He suffered a major knee injury early that season, one that kept him on the PUP list heading into the 2018 season. He was released by Philadelphia this February. He stated that surgeries and rehab on his knee is what will end his career, which indicates either that his rehab was not going well or that he did not want to risk further injury. The 32-year-old battled his entire career, first as a walk-on at Western Michigan and again at Wisconsin before he went undrafted and caught on with the 49ers. After three games with them in 2010 he ended up in Seattle, where he appeared in 43 games across three seasons from 2011-2013, almost exclusively on special teams. He played the next four seasons with the Eagles, finishing his career with 49 solo tackles, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries in 99 regular-season games played. MORE: See the dramatic final hand of 2019 WSOP Main Event that won Hossein Ensan $10 million Baker Mayfield swings and missed with attempted rip of Giants fans News: Cowboys' $100 million men underpaid, and more dangerous in 2019 The Cubs Are Very Mad About Barstool Chicago and Beer Cup Snake Videos The top 100 players in the NFL today


NEW ORLEANS   A new lion exhibit is opening at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. During a recent tour, the African lions were seen lounging in the shade of an enormous rock surrounded by open grass and tree limbs. The scene is reminiscent of the African Savannah and is part of the new exhibit opening Saturday. Visitors will be able to see critically endangered lions   three females and a full-maned male   from the safety of a fictional train station. Rail cars with glass-fronted openings to the "savanna" include informational displays about threats facing lions in the wild, such as poaching and habitat loss, as well as efforts being done to save them. Zoo curator and vice president Joel Hamilton says there are only about 20,000 lions left in Africa.


Dr. James Andrews tells Steck to rest, plus why Miguel Rojas hobbled off the field on Wednesday. Throughout the 2019 season, Fish Stripes will pass along updates on injured Marlins players and top prospects as they attempt to get back on the field. Here is what we've learned in recent days... MLB RHP Drew Steckenrider (right flexor strain) is feeling a little relieved. Although recently transferred to the 60-day injured list and facing a long road back to the majors, a second opinion from world-renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews determined that Steck would not require season-ending surgery. He will rest for the foreseeable future and doesn't yet have a timetable to return. The 28-year-old got off to a rocky start to the season prior to landing on the IL (6.28 ERA, 7.85 FIP in 14.1 IP). SS Miguel Rojas was being treated for back spasms on Tuesday, according to manager Don Mattingly, but started the following day anyway. However, Rojas needed to be removed midway through Wednesday's game when he aggravated the issue on the basepaths. No word yet on whether or not it's an IL situation. The veteran leader has been one of the many slumping bats in Miami's lineup, contributing zero extra-base hits over his past 20 games. Miguel Rojas day-to-day with back spasms. This was him being removed from the game earlier. pic.twitter.com/vlEwcW7f7k   Fish Stripes (@fishstripes) May 16, 2019 RHP Riley Ferrell (biceps tendinitis) is on the verge of beginning a minor league rehab assignment. The Rule 5 Draft pick worked 1 2 ⁄ 3 innings in extended spring training on Monday. It figures to a lengthy assignment considering that he has no prior MLB experience (and struggled in his brief taste of Triple-A last season). Currently on the 60-day IL, the Marlins will need to clear a 40-man and active roster spot for him. RHP Julian Fernández (Tommy John surgery) is further away than Ferrell, continuing his throwing progression at extended spring. The 23-year-old would also be viewed strictly as a bullpen piece at the major league level. MiLB RHP Matt Givin (Tommy John surgery) has progressed to throwing live batting practice , reports Wells Dusenbury of the Sun Sentinel. Givin is almost 13 months removed from the procedure. My feature about the former 20th-round draft pick includes more details about his repertoire and long-term potential. Other notable prospect injuries: RHP Nick Neidert (right knee tendinitis), SS Osiris Johnson (tibial stress fracture likely out for the season)


LOS ANGELES   Adding to a chorus of critics of SeaWorld's killer whale shows, a U.S. congressman from Southern California has announced legislation to phase out the display of orcas for entertainment. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said Friday he plans to introduce a bill to prohibit the breeding of captive orcas, end the capture of wild orcas and stop the import and export of the killer whales. The bill, if approved, would put an end to shows across the country featuring the marine mammals once the existing whales in captivity die. "The evidence is very strong that the psychological and physical harm done to these magnificent animals far outweighs any benefits reaped from their display," Schiff said in a statement. SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., the parent company of SeaWorld San Diego, has 24 orcas in three parks across the country. Miami Seaquarium has one killer whale. A SeaWorld representative responded to Schiff's announcement, saying the company does not neglect or abuse killer whales. "Through our work with scientists, conservation leaders and the government, SeaWorld is ensuring that all animals in human care are treated with the dignity and respect they require and deserve," said Jill Kermes, a spokeswoman for SeaWorld Entertainment. Schiff's announcement comes as SeaWorld struggles to fight back against charges leveled in the 2013 documentary "Blackfish" that captive killer whales are abused and neglected at the marine-themed parks. SeaWorld tried to fire back against the negative publicity by announcing plans recently to spend $100 million to expand its killer whale enclosure at SeaWorld San Diego. The California Coastal Commission, which has authority over construction along the coast, approved the project but added the condition that SeaWorld end its breeding program and import no new orcas. SeaWorld has announced plans to challenge the decision in court. SeaWorld officials have rejected calls to end whale breeding, saying the only way to ensure the animals don't breed is to separate male and female whales. That would mean separating siblings and parents from offspring. No whale has been caught off U.S. waters since 1976, and no wild-caught orcas have been transferred to the U.S. from other countries since 2001, according to Schiff. The 11 whales at SeaWorld San Diego range in age from 10 months to 50 years, which could allow the park to display animals for decades, depending on the longevity of the whales. Animal rights activists have demanded that SeaWorld release the orcas to seaside sanctuaries, although none currently exist to hold the 11 whales. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist for the Animal Welfare Institute, said the fact that captive whales are breeding with close family members shows that captivity is harmful to the orcas. She also said the legislation would create an incentive for SeaWorld to develop a long-term contraceptive for whales. "Right now, they have no interest in developing a long-term contraceptive," she said. Last year, Schiff tried to add an amendment to a funding bill to update the federal Animal Welfare Act to "reflect the growing scientific and public concern about the effect of captivity on these animals." The amendment was not added to the final funding bill.