Good Morning Lowcountry

Friday bytes

At the intersection of news you can use and news you can't use lies GMLc's weekly summary from various sources:

UNICEF/AP

A mother and child look on in Kawhmu Township in the cyclone-ravaged southwestern Irrawaddy division of Myanmar on Tuesday.

Myanmar. Foreign powers warn that starvation and disease could overtake up to 2.5 million people left destitute by a cyclone in Myanmar's southern Irrawaddy Delta two weeks ago, Reuters reported. The ruling military junta says relief efforts are going well. But in the delta town of Bogalay, where about 10,000 people died, people are reporting forced labor and low food supplies, Reuters reported. Myanmar's official death toll from the cyclone is 43,328.

Surf gangs. The New York Times reported the death of pro surfer Emery Kauanui Jr. in La Jolla, Calif. He was beaten to death by five young men in their 20s who were members of a surfing gang called the Bird Rock Bandits. They deny their group was a gang, but prosecutors say they should be charged under the California law that applies to criminal gangs.

Drugging deportees. The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners who are being deported with psychotropic drugs against their will, The Washington Post reported. Documents uncovered by the The Post refer to the government's use of a "pre-flight cocktail" to keep detainees sedated during the trip back to their home country.

Ban dropped. The California Supreme Court overturned a ban on gay marriage in that state Thursday. The justices said in their opinion that domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage: "We conclude that to the extent the current California statutory provisions limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, these statutes are unconstitutional."

Baby supernova. Astronomers have found a supernova in the Milky Way that is only 140 years old, AP reported. The star died sometime around 1868. Before this observation, the youngest supernova in the Milky Way was thought to have occurred around 1680. A supernova is the explosion of a star.

Black holes redux. What happens to stuff that falls into a black hole? Space.com reported that a new explanation shreds the concept of a space-time continuum. The new idea is that space-time is bigger than was thought, and so there's room for information swallowed by the black hole to reappear.

"There is room for information to reappear in the distant future on the other side of what was first thought to be the end of space-time," said researcher Abhay Ashtekar.

Matriculating early. Moshe Kai Cavalin is a sophomore at East Los Angeles College despite being only 10 years old. He's interested in "wormholes," a theoretical phenomenon connected to black holes that would allow time travel. He plays piano and is learning Mandarin Chinese. "He sees things very simply," said his statistics teacher. "Moshe sees right through the complications."

Oops. In the case of an unfortunate impulse, a Fort Worth, Texas, man tried to scratch his back with a revolver and accidentally shot himself, The Dallas Morning News reported. Jorge Espinal was drinking beer and playing poker about 3 a.m. Sunday when he decided to scratch the itch with a gun. "He told officers he had an itch on his back and grabbed the first thing he could get a hold of, which was a revolver," a police lieutenant told the newspaper. "The gun went off."

GMLc
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