the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Talk about scaring the crap out of you!!!​

When You Go to the Loo, a Bat Might Go Boo​

Among roosting bats in parts of Africa, the inside of a drop toilet can be a lovely place to hang

A slit-faced bat flying out of the drop hole of a pit toilet, a not-uncommon bathroom guest in some parts of Tanzania, Kenya and other African countries.

A slit-faced bat flying out of the drop hole of a pit toilet, a not-uncommon bathroom guest in some parts of Tanzania, Kenya and other African countries. Credit...Leejiah Dorward

Imagine you are at a research camp in the Tanzanian grasslands and you need to relieve yourself. You walk to the nearby pit toilet: a concrete slab with a tiny portal that opens into an eight-foot pit heaped with human waste. You drop your pants, squat and carry out your business. Suddenly you realize you are not alone. Maybe it is a slight gust of air, or something even more corporeal.

“I’ve had the soft, leathery caress of a bat’s wing against my buttocks while having a poo,” said Leejiah Dorward, a postdoctoral researcher at Bangor University in Wales.

In Tanzania, the spaces under certain pit latrines have become cozy havens for roosting bats, according to a paper published by Dr. Dorward and colleagues in September in the African Journal of Ecology. The researchers found the pits’ rotting depths warm the air, and the concrete slab overhead keeps predators out. Even the occasional falling feces or overhead spray does not drive the bats away, though they may startle the animals into flight.

“Suddenly you would feel one charge upwards and launch itself between your legs,” said Amy Dickman, a senior research fellow at Oxford University and director of the Ruaha Carnivore Project in Tanzania. “Then you have this furry mammal just flying into your behind.” Though Dr. Dickman was not involved with the research, her toilet was one of seven examined by Dr. Dorward.

Dr. Dorward first encountered the bats in 2015 at Dr. Dickman’s research camp near Ruaha National Park (where he first felt the velvety kiss of furred wings on his derrière), but toilet bats may be familiar bathroom buddies to anyone who has used pit latrines in certain parts of Africa.



A wire tied to a rock, which the scientists used to place a temperature logger inside the latrine.

A wire tied to a rock, which the scientists used to place a temperature logger inside the latrine. Credit...Charlotte Searle



A diagram with Dr. Dorward’s paper showed where bats roost in pit latrines.

A diagram with Dr. Dorward’s paper showed where bats roost in pit latrines. Credit...Leejiah Dorward

Sospeter Kibiwot, a bat ecologist at the University of Eldoret in Kenya, first saw a toilet bat when he was in elementary school, an encounter that both spooked him and inspired him to learn more about bats. “Since my childhood, I have spotted more than 10 pit-latrine roosts,” Mr. Kibiwot wrote in an email. “Not all such latrines are roosts but just a few.”

Members of the conservation organization Global South Bats have seen bats roosting in latrines in Zambia and Madagascar and in sewage systems in Mauritius, according to Angelica Menchaca, the group’s general director.

Realizing the phenomenon seemed absent from scientific literature, Dr. Dorward began to survey the pit toilets around camp for potential occupants in 2017. His first surveilling method was to photograph the bats. His camera would not fit down the drop hole — an intentionally tiny opening to ensure humans do not tumble through — so he had to disconnect the lens from the camera, pass both pieces through the hole and twist them together without dropping anything.

“It was not an optimal way of doing it,” Dr. Dorward said.

He later fashioned a less precarious strategy, inspired by a dental mirror. He taped a small mirror and a flashlight to angled aluminum bars, allowing him to count all the roosting bats, which clung to the wooden bars holding up the concrete slab.

Six of the seven toilets at camp were blessed with bats. The oldest toilet, which was established seven or eight years before the survey, housed 9 to 13 bats. The newest toilet had no bats. A toilet with just a foot or two between the hole and the mound of stools, had only a few bats.

The researchers sent photos of the bats to Bruce Patterson, a mammal curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. Dr. Patterson helped identify the toilet dwellers as Nycteris, or slit-faced bats (the researchers also found a single heart-nosed bat in the surveys).

A heart-nosed bat, left, and two slit-faced bats roosting at the top of a latrine sidewall.

A heart-nosed bat, left, and two slit-faced bats roosting at the top of a latrine sidewall. Credit...Leejiah Dorward

Paul Webala, a wildlife biologist at Maasai Mara University in Kenya, who has a forthcoming paper about toilet bats in that country, has observed the large-eared slit-faced bat and the Egyptian slit-faced bat in his own latrine surveys.

Dr. Patterson said he suspects that Nycteris bats may be most dominant in latrines because their wing shape allows them to maneuver in tight spaces and trespass through small holes. “There are lots of bats that would love to roost there but are incapable of doing it because of their flight mechanics,” he said.

While some bats thrive by making homes of outhouses, adjacency to humans leaves other species in the lurch. “Urbanization jeopardizes most bat species,” said Danilo Russo, an ecologist at the University of Naples Federico II. Some other researchers said the bats might even be using the latrines as a refuge from their disappearing wilderness. “Some bat species live along humans as the last resort,” said Mr. Kibiwot, the bat ecologist.

For anyone unfamiliar with the design of a drop toilet, the published paper included a hand-drawn graphic, complete with a heap of rotting waste, two bats and a human figure. “The squatting chap is totally superfluous to the paper, but just felt right,” said Dr. Dorward, who drew the sketch.

Fittingly, this illustration was labeled ‘Figure 2’ in the paper, an unintentional homage to what the squatting chap may be doing, just above the bats.
 

Unvaccinated Capitol Rioter Pleads for Leniency Because She’s Scared of Getting Covid in Prison​

We’re not foreseeing a lot of sympathy from the court on this one​

 
A false conspiracy theory about Covid-19 vaccines may have driven a Maryland man to kill three people last week, including his brother, a pharmacist, the authorities said.

The police said Jeffrey Burnham, 46, of Cumberland, Md., killed a longtime family friend, stole her car, then drove about 130 miles to Ellicott City, Md., where he shot and killed his brother and sister-in-law in their home.

He had become convinced that his brother, Brian Robinette, 58, was working with the government to poison people with the vaccines, according to a charging document filed by the police in Howard County District Court. Rumors and false information about the Covid-19 vaccines have circulated widely for months, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that they are safe and effective.

Detectives said that Mr. Burnham’s mother, Evelyn, had called the Cumberland police on Sept. 29, worried about her son’s mental health and his fears that the F.B.I. was after the two of them.

Police Cite Anti-Vaccine Motive in Killing of Pharmacist and 2 Others
 
As a "Lifeless" Bugs Bunny, being carried away into the sunset by Elmer in "What's Opera Doc" said to everyone, "What'd you expect in an opera, a happy ending?"

Bolshoi performer killed in onstage accident during opera​

pressherald.com/2021/10/10/bolshoi-performer-killed-in-onstage-accident-during-opera/

By Rachel Pannett October 10, 2021

A performer was killed during an opera at Moscow’s famous Bolshoi Theater on Saturday in an accident that occurred during a scene change, the theater said.

The 37-year-old man was performing in “Sadko,” an opera by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, when he was reportedly crushed by a piece of scenery. He went in the wrong direction as a backdrop descended onto the stage during the performance, Russian media reported.

Videos circulating online appeared to show performers shouting “Stop!” and pleading with staff to lift the backdrop and call an ambulance. The orchestra stopped playing and several performers ran to the back of the stage before the curtains were drawn.

“The opera was immediately stopped and the audience was asked to leave,” the theater said in comments carried by the Interfax news agency.

Local media reported that audience members appeared to think that the onstage panic was part of the performance, and were unaware that someone had died.

The man had reportedly been with the company since 2002 as part of a 50-person group of Bolshoi employees who served as onstage extras.

He was not identified by authorities, but Tass news agency named him as Yevgeny Kulesh, citing an unnamed law enforcement official.

It is not the first time tragedy has struck the renowned theater, home to one of Russia’s most famous ballet and opera companies.

A senior violinist died in 2013 after falling into the orchestra pit. Viktor Sedov, 65, had played violin for the Moscow theater’s ballet and opera productions for almost four decades, and was reportedly known for his sense of humor and “extraordinary” erudition.

That same year, ballet soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko was ordered jailed for six years by a Moscow court for his role in a brutal acid attack on the company’s artistic director, Sergei Filin, that left him almost blind. Dmitrichenko had reportedly admitted he wanted Filin “roughed up” but had denied wanting acid thrown into his face, in a case that revealed bitter rivalries and infighting at the theater.


 
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Inside Rikers: Dysfunction, Lawlessness and Detainees in Control

NEW YORK — When a detainee decided to hijack a bus inside the Rikers Island jail complex, little was in place to stop him. All he had to do was rise from where he sat with a half dozen other handcuffed men and walk to the front of the unguarded vehicle: A gate that should have confined him was...
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NEW YORK — When a detainee decided to hijack a bus inside the Rikers Island jail complex, little was in place to stop him.

All he had to do was rise from where he sat with a half dozen other handcuffed men and walk to the front of the unguarded vehicle: A gate that should have confined him was left unsecured. The keys were in the ignition.

Putting the bus into gear, he rammed a jail building and then backed up and rammed it again, this time with enough force to shake the walls and scatter bricks.

To outsiders, the details of the Sept. 16 incident, which have not been previously reported, might sound alarming. But to anyone who has spent time on Rikers Island in the past year, such breakdowns are business as usual.

Much has been made of the crisis gripping Rikers, New York City’s main jail complex — the pandemic and a subsequent staffing emergency have taken a brutal toll on incarcerated people and jailers alike — but the sheer lawlessness inside the compound is difficult to fathom.

Detainees in some buildings have seized near total control over entire units, deciding who can enter and leave them, records and interviews show. In other buildings, they have wandered in and out of staff break rooms and similarly restricted areas, with some flouting rules against smoking tobacco and marijuana. Sometimes they have answered phones that were supposed to be manned by guards. Several have stolen keys and used them to free others in custody, who went on to commit slashings and other acts of violence.

The chaos was not limited to incarcerated people. Correction officers have participated in beatings or failed to intervene in hangings and other urgent situations. Last week, a guard was charged with providing a razor blade to a detainee who planned to use it as a weapon.

City officials have accused jail officers of abusing generous sick leave policies — hundreds have been out of work — while the officers’ labor union has said guards are not going to work because conditions in the jails are unsafe and inhumane.

Both sides have cast the situation as an acute crisis. But the troubles on Rikers Island trace also to physical grounds that have been neglected for decades, leading to doors that do not lock properly, cells that are too deteriorated to contain detainees and aging objects like radiators that can be ripped apart and turned into weapons. The jail complex is also reliant on guards who — thanks to years of mismanagement and ineffective training — sometimes fail to follow rules meant to keep them and incarcerated people safe.

The result has been a steady beat of violence and dysfunction — and also bizarre scenes not likely to play out in other correctional centers.

One man awaiting trial in August grabbed keys from a correction officer, freed another detainee and then used a knife to slash the guard’s face and neck. Bleeding from his wounds, the jailer escaped by locking himself in his attacker’s cell.

Less than three weeks later, another man discovered that a metal grate in the wall of his cell was so rickety he could kick it down. He climbed through the opening and stabbed his neighbor.

In September, detainees kept an open flame burning on a mop string in a staircase, using it to light cigarettes and joints.

Accounts of such incidents have proliferated despite a jail population that has fallen to some of the lowest levels in decades, the result of changes to state bail laws and the city’s push last year to release hundreds of detainees amid concerns over the pandemic.

Spread across eight jail buildings on an island in the East River, between the Bronx and Queens, Rikers houses more than 4,800 detainees on a given day, a majority of whom are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime. Most do not commit violent acts, and a significant number struggle with mental illness.

Twelve detainees, most on Rikers, have died this year, making 2021 the deadliest in New York City’s jail system since 2015. Four captains and eight correction officers have been punished for failing to perform their jobs properly in connection with those deaths.

Last month, more than a dozen New York Democrats called on the federal government to intervene at Rikers, expressing doubt that the city could solve the problems on its own.

City officials said the Department of Correction is focusing on cutting absenteeism among jail officers to address the disorder on the island, adding that it has made progress. At the height of the staffing crisis, about a third of the jails’ roughly 8,000 guards were failing to show, forcing those who remained to work double and triple shifts that could last 24 hours or more. Now, the officials said, that number is closer to about a quarter of the jails’ workforce.

“We expect and demand further improvement in the weeks to come,” Vincent Schiraldi, the jails commissioner, said in a statement Friday. “We won’t rest until conditions improve and everyone who lives and works in our facilities feels safe.”

Things are unlikely to improve dramatically before the next mayor takes office in January, with the crisis presenting an immediate test. A spokesperson for Eric Adams, who won the Democratic mayoral primary and is likely to become New York City’s next mayor, did not respond directly to a request for comment about Rikers Island, but pointed to Adams’ previous statements in favor of steering more money and resources to the jails.

As city officials struggle to respond to the problems in the jails, a sense of futility has taken hold, according to interviews with seven current and former detainees and seven jailers, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss workplace problems. One said he has stopped confiscating weapons — even though stabbings have doubled compared with last year — because doing so would require him to use force in an area where he is likely to be alone with dozens of detainees, with no guarantee of immediate backup.

“Rikers has long been dysfunctional, decrepit and dangerous,” said Zachary Katznelson, executive director of the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform, a research and advocacy organization. “What we see today is next level. It is an inability to deliver even the basic services — something we haven’t seen in a long time, if not ever.”

A ‘Different World’

To guards, detainees and their lawyers, the most striking aspect of the current dysfunction at Rikers Island is the extent to which incarcerated people seem to run parts of the complex.

The New York Times reviewed thousands of pages of court filings and city records and conducted more than two dozen interviews, and found more than a dozen instances since July alone in which detainees have wandered freely or enjoyed unusual access in the jails.

On five occasions in the last 18 months, incarcerated people who should have been confined or closely supervised were instead free to commit violent acts.

After a fight broke out in one building in June 2020, a detainee left an unlocked housing unit, grabbed a can of pepper spray off a food cart where a guard had left it and used it to spray staff members.

About two months later, a Rikers nurse, Alicia Butler, was working in a secure office in a mental health ward when a detainee opened the security gate and beat her with his fists, inflicting injuries to her hip and knee that were so severe she needed surgery.

A group of men in another housing unit, upset because they said they were not getting enough to eat this summer, blocked two guards in another housing unit from locking a security gate, took keys and a body camera from them and crushed the camera under their heels as the jailers hid in a control station.

The volatility inside the jails has become such that regular visitors to the buildings can never be sure of what they will encounter.

Civilian staff members who arrived at one jail in September were greeted by a group of detainees who offered to escort them through the building to keep them safe.

Moving farther into the jail, the employees were alarmed to see incarcerated people moving about freely, passing them in the halls and milling on staircases, with no guards in sight.

In another area, they watched as an officer in a control station allowed men to move casually from one unit to the next.

As the employees were leaving, they encountered three guards who were taking in the scene without intervening and a captain who ignored their requests to be let out of the housing area. A fourth guard heard the staffers yelling for assistance and opened the gate.

After an arrest on a probation violation charge, Richard Brown, 49, was brought to an area that he said was run by other incarcerated people last month.

Within two hours of arriving in an intake cell, he was confronted by gang members who tried to steal his sneakers while guards looked on.

He said he went two days without eating because the other men in the holding pen controlled the food distribution and would not allow him to have any.

When guards did try to break up fights, which were constant, they did so by blasting all the cell’s occupants with pepper spray, whether they were combatants or not.

Toward the end of his two-week stay, Brown witnessed a group of men badly beating another detainee in an unguarded housing area.

Brown said he is still haunted by the man’s screams. “That’s worse than any torture chamber,” he said of Rikers Island. “No human should ever go through that.”

Persistent Problems

Persistent failures to repair crumbling infrastructure and train and manage guards effectively have compounded the problems on Rikers.

Abysmal conditions inside the buildings have been flagged repeatedly in court filings, inspection reports and other city records since the 1970s. A city report in 2015 warned that degrading physical conditions inside jailhouses were providing detainees with the “raw materials to fashion weapons,” with buildings full of aging pipes, metal radiators and other items that could be broken, beaten or carved into crude blades.

Mayor Bill de Blasio noted two years later that extensive repairs and renovations to the buildings were still needed to ensure that conditions were safe and humane. But his focus by then was on closing Rikers Island entirely rather than overseeing long-term improvements.

Problems with jail staffing have been flagged equally often, especially in the past five years. They were mentioned in federal oversight reports in 2016, when monitors found that staff members continued to escalate violent confrontations with detainees at the mildest provocation. And again in 2017, when the monitor noted repeated “security lapses” by staffers that led to disorder in the jail. The reports’ tone grew more critical in recent years, and the monitor noted staff insubordination, lack of basic conflict-management skills and chronic delays in the disciplinary process.

Every time concerns were raised, the city promised to do better — and then largely failed to deliver, records and interviews show.

“Despite years of reform rhetoric,” said Mary Lynne Werlwas, director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, “the de Blasio administration has been unable or unwilling to make serious changes.”

As the crisis intensified this summer, the city made more promises.

Responding to reports of crippling, widespread absenteeism by jail staff in September, the mayor pledged action again, signing an emergency order to impose suspensions on correction officers who did not show up for posts, to open new clinics and intake centers and to hire emergency contractors to repair and clean jailhouses.

Still, the problems continued. A week after de Blasio signed that order, yet another detainee was out of his cell when he should not have been. Free to wander the row, he paused at a friend’s cell, and they were talking through the door when the friend’s cellmate approached, clutching a makeshift metal blade.

His arm moved through the food slot, cutting a gash in the face of the wandering detainee.

© 2021 The New York Times Company
 
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The next big cyberthreat isn't ransomware. It's killware. And it's just as bad as it sounds.

Hackers increasingly target infrastructure – from hospitals and water supplies to banks and transit – in ways that could injure or kill.
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Weaponized technology​

Like Mayorkas, private-sector computer security experts recently have begun issuing warnings that so-called cyber-physical security incidents involving a wide range of critical national infrastructure targets could potentially lead to loss of life. Those include oil and gas manufacturing and other elements of the energy sector, as well as water and chemical systems, transportation and aviation and dams.

And with the rise of consumer-based products like smart thermostats and autonomous vehicles, Americans are now living in a “ubiquitous Cyber-Physical Systems world” that has become a potential minefield of threats, said Wam Voster, senior research director at the security firm Gartner Inc.

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