'Barrier of Bodies' Trapped Nightclub Fire Victims

The bodies of the young college students were found piled up just inside the entrance of the Kiss nightclub, among more than 230 people who died in a cloud of toxic smoke after a blaze enveloped the crowded locale within seconds and set off a panic.

Hours later, the horrific chaos had transformed into a scene of tragic order, with row upon row of polished caskets of the dead lined up in the community gymnasium in the university city of Santa Maria. Many of the victims were under 20 years old, including some minors.

As the city in southern Brazil prepared to bury the 233 people killed in the conflagration caused by a band's pyrotechnic display, an early investigation into the tragedy revealed that security guards briefly prevented partygoers from leaving through the sole exit. And the bodies later heaped inside that doorway slowed firefighters trying to get in.

"It was terrible inside — it was like one of those films of the Holocaust, bodies piled atop one another," said police inspector Sandro Meinerz. "We had to use trucks to remove them. It took about six hours to take the bodies away."

Survivors and another police inspector, Marcelo Arigony, said security guards briefly tried to block people from exiting the club. Brazilian bars routinely make patrons pay their entire tab at the end of the night before they are allowed to leave.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil Nightclub Fire: Nearly 200 People Killed Watch Video

"It was chaotic and it doesn't seem to have been done in bad faith because several security guards also died," he told The Associated Press.

Later, firefighters responding to the blaze initially had trouble entering the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance," Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper.

Police inspectors said they think the source of the blaze was a band's small pyrotechnics show. The fire broke out sometime before 3 a.m. Sunday and the fast-moving fire and toxic smoke created by burning foam sound insulation material on the ceiling engulfed the club within seconds.

Authorities said band members who were on the stage when the fire broke out later talked with police and confirmed they used pyrotechnics during their show.

Meinerz, who coordinated the investigation at the nightclub, said one band member died after escaping because he returned inside the burning building to save his accordion. The other band members escaped alive because they were the first to notice the fire.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," she said.

Most victims died from smoke inhalation rather than burns. Many of the dead, about equally split between young men and women, were also found in the club's two bathrooms, where they fled apparently because the blinding smoke caused them to believe the doors were exits.

There were questions about the club's operating license. Police said it was in the process of being renewed, but it was not clear if it was illegal for the business to be open. A single entrance area about the size of five door spaces was used both as an entrance and an exit.

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Get cirrus in the fight against climate change

FEATHERY cirrus clouds are beautiful, but when it comes to climate change, they are the enemy. Found at high-altitude and made of small ice crystals, they trap heat - so more cirrus means a warmer world. Now it seems that, by destroying cirrus, we could reverse all the warming Earth has experienced so far.

In 2009, David Mitchell of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, proposed a radical way to stop climate change: get rid of some cirrus. Now Trude Storelvmo of Yale University and colleagues have used a climate model to test the idea.

Storelvmo added powdered bismuth triiodide into the model's troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere in which these clouds form. Ice crystals grew around these particles and expanded, eventually falling out of the sky, reducing cirrus coverage. Without the particles, the ice crystals remained small and stayed up high for longer.

The technique, done on a global scale, created a powerful cooling effect, enough to counteract the 0.8 °C of warming caused by all the greenhouse gases released by humans (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/grl.50122).

But too much bismuth triiodide made the ice crystals shrink, so cirrus clouds lasted longer. "If you get the concentrations wrong, you could get the opposite of what you want," says Storelvmo. And, like other schemes for geoengineering, side effects are likely - changes in the jet stream, say.

Different model assumptions give different "safe" amounts of bismuth triiodide, says Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, UK. "Do we really know the system well enough to be confident of being in the safe zone?" he asks. "You wouldn't want to touch this until you knew."

Mitchell says seeding would take 140 tonnes of bismuth triiodide every year, which by itself would cost $19 million.

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Protesters march against Hong Kong leader

HONG KONG: Around 1,000 people took to the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to protest against the city leader's policy speech, which they said offered nothing new on tackling a housing crisis and poverty.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying pledged, among other things, to increase housing supply in the densely populated city and tackle poverty in his January policy address widely seen as an attempt to halt mass protests against his leadership.

Protesters held up a colourful array of banners, some of which portrayed Leung as a vampire and Pinocchio.

"Leung Chun-ying does not have the heart or the ability to solve the problems for the Hong Kong people," Icarus Wong, vice-convener of one of the protest organisers, Civil Human Rights Front, told AFP.

People were showing their "disappointment and anger" because his speech offered no new ideas on solving the housing crisis and tackling poverty, Wong said.

Protesters also called for universal suffrage in the former British colony, which returned to China in 1997.

Hong Kong maintains a semi-autonomous status but cannot choose its leader through the popular vote.

Beijing has said the chief executive could be directly elected in 2017 at the earliest, with the legislature following by 2020.

Leung, who was chosen by a 1,200-member election committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites, saw his approval rating plunge to a low of 31 percent, according to an opinion poll released in January by the University of Hong Kong.

- AFP/xq

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At least 5 die in Chicago shootings

CHICAGO Authorities are investigating the shooting deaths of five people in a single day of bloodshed in Chicago.

Police Officer Daniel O'Brien says Saturday's first killing occurred at around 2:15 a.m. on the city's west side when a gunman opened fire on two men who were sitting in a parked car, killing one and wounding the other.

Investigators say a few hours later, someone opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third.

Detectives were called to the scene of another shooting Saturday afternoon in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.

Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008.

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Squatter, Bank of America Battle for $2.5M Mansion

Bank of America is taking a Florida man to court after he attempted to use an antiquated state law to legally take possession of a $2.5 million mansion that is currently owned by the bank.

Andre "Loki" Barbosa has lived in a five-bedroom Boca Raton, Fla., waterside property since July, and police have reportedly been unable to remove him.

The Brazilian national, 23, who reportedly refers to himself as "Loki Boy," cites Florida's "adverse possession" law, in which a party may acquire title from another by openly occupying their land and paying real property tax for at least seven years.

The house is listed as being owned by Bank of America as of July 2012, and that an adverse possession was filed in July. After Bank of America foreclosed on the property last year, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office was notified that Barbosa would be moving in, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The Sun-Sentinel reported that he posted a notice in the front window of the house naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury."
On Facebook, a man named Andre Barbosa calls the property "Templo de Kamisamar."

After Barbosa gained national attention for his brazen attempt, Bank of America filed an injunction on Jan. 23 to evict Barbosa and eight unidentified occupants.

In the civil complaint, Bank of America said Barbosa and other tenants "unlawfully entered the property" and "refused to permit the Plaintiff agents entry, use, and possession of its property." In addition to eviction, Bank of America is asking for $15,000 in damages to be paid to cover attorney's expenses.

Police were called Dec. 26 to the home but did not remove Barbosa, according to the Sentinel. Barbosa reportedly presented authorities with the adverse possession paperwork at the time.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Povery Law Center, says police officers may be disinclined to take action even if they are presented with paperwork that is invalid.

"A police officer walks up to someone who is claiming a house now belongs to him, without any basis at all, is handed a big sheaf of documents, which are incomprehensible," Potok said. "I think very often the officers ultimately feel that they're forced to go back to headquarters and try to figure out what's going on before they can actually toss someone in the slammer."

A neighbor of the Boca property, who asked not be named, told ABCNews.com that he entered the empty home just before Christmas to find four people inside, one of whom said the group is establishing an embassy for their mission, and that families would be moving in and out of the property. Barbosa was also among them.

The neighbor said he believes that Barbosa is a "patsy."

"This young guy is caught up in this thing," the neighbor said. "I think it's going on on a bigger scale."

Barbosa could not be reached for comment.

The neighbor said that although the lights have been turned on at the house, the water has not, adding that this makes it clear it is not a permanent residence. The neighbor also said the form posted in the window is "total gibberish," which indicated that the house is an embassy, and that those who enter must present two forms of identification, and respect the rights of its indigenous people.

"I think it's a group of people that see an opportunity to get some money from the bank," the neighbor said. "If they're going to hold the house ransom, then the bank is going to have to go through an eviction process.

"They're taking advantage of banks, where the right hand doesn't know where the left hand is," the neighbor said. "They can't clap."

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The digital map is not the territory

WHEN Google Maps launched in 2005, the reaction in some quarters was puzzlement. Why was a search engine getting into cartography? The answer became apparent as it rapidly enhanced the service with navigation, Street View, local business listings and so on. Google doesn't just want to catalogue the online world; it wants to know where everything is in the physical world, too.

Eight years on, that goal looks within reach. Google and its competitors now offer maps of the depths of the oceans and the far side of the Moon. They help their users to navigate everywhere from side streets to shopping malls. And they have revolutionised the way we think about location - putting us, rather than some culturally significant but geographically arbitrary prime meridian, at the centre of the map (see "Uncharted territory: Where digital maps are leading us").

This innovation has made digital maps all but indispensable to millions of people. They provide an alternative view of the world: one that offers suggestions about directions and places. They are also becoming one of the primary tools for exploring the wealth of civic data now available about our surroundings, from crime statistics to traffic flows.

When the maps turn out to be wrong, though, we feel betrayed: witness the rare bloody nose dealt to Apple when it recently unveiled a buggy iPhone map app.

Such trust issues hint at bigger battles to come. Many of today's wondrous maps are powered by deep-pocketed companies, each claiming to offer the ultimate in verisimilitude. But many details of their construction are trade secrets. This matters because all maps have their quirks and biases. Consider the Mercator projection, breakthrough mapping of a different age: it helped make global exploration possible, but grossly distorts the land area of different countries.

More than 80 years ago, the philosopher Alfred Korzybski observed that "the map is not the territory". A representation of reality, no matter how faithful it may seem, is not the same thing as reality itself. We should be mindful of that distinction as digital mapping evolves.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Funerals for six protesters killed by Iraq troops

FALLUJAH, Iraq: Funerals were to be held on Saturday for six anti-government demonstrators killed by Iraqi troops during a rally in Fallujah a day earlier, sharply raising tensions amid weeks of angry rallies.

The deaths in the predominantly Sunni town west of Baghdad were the first since protests began last month, and came as tens of thousands rallied in Sunni areas of the country, railing against alleged targeting of their minority by the Shiite-led authorities.

While some Shiite clerics gave cross-sectarian support to the protests, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed demonstrators for "raising tensions" and insisted soldiers had been "attacked".

Friday's rally had been moving from central to eastern Fallujah, 60 kilometres (35 miles) from Baghdad, but was blocked off by soldiers, police captain Nasser Awad said.

Protesters then began throwing bottles of water at the troops, who opened fire.

Six demonstrators were killed, all of them from gunshot wounds, said Khaled Khalaf al-Rawi, a doctor at Fallujah hospital. Rawi said 35 were wounded, the majority by gunfire.

Defence ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said an inquiry had begun, and pledged that victims would be financially compensated.

Officials in Fallujah earlier said the army had vacated the town and had been ordered to transfer security responsibility to the police.

Maliki called for restraint by security forces in a statement issued by his office, but also said soldiers had been attacked in the first place.

"This is what Al-Qaeda and terrorist groups are seeking to exploit," he said, referring to apparent sectarian tensions.

Along with protests in Fallujah on Friday, large demonstrations also took place in several other Sunni cities in north and west Iraq, as well as in Sunni neighbourhoods of Baghdad.

The protests have hardened opposition against Maliki and come amid a political crisis less than three months ahead of key provincial elections.

- AFP/al

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21 sentenced to death over 2012 soccer riot

Egyptian protesters take part in a demonstration near the prison in city of Port Said on January 25.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Forces clashed with family members of those convicted


• Known as the "massacre of Port Said," 74 people were killed in the riot


• The violence occurred at the conclusion of a football match in Port Said last year


• The sentences were handed down in a packed courtroom

(CNN) -- An Egyptian judge sentenced 21 people to death Saturday for their roles in a football game riot last year, a ruling that sparked violent clashes between security forces and relatives of the convicted.

The riot in Port Said left 74 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded.

Security forces and family members clashed outside the prison in the northeastern port city, where authorities accused some of attempting to storm the building to free their loved ones, state-run Nile TV reported.

"There is a state of anger on the streets of Port Said, and the security forces are on high alert," Nile TV reported.

The crowd fired guns and hurled rocks at the security forces, who in turn used tear gas to disperse the crowd, according to state-run media.

The sentences were handed down in a packed courtroom in Cairo as victims' relatives and those convicted wept.

"I thank God that justice is back in the courts of Egypt. Many mothers will sleep sound tonight knowing justice is served," the mother of Mustafa Issam, who was killed in the riots, told Nile TV by phone.

The sentences must be reviewed by Egypt's highest religious authority, who will return his opinion to the court March 9. On that day, an additional 54 defendants in the case will also be sentenced, the judge said.

Dubbed the "massacre at Port Said" by Egyptian media, the riot broke out on February 1, 2012, after Port Said-based Al-Masry defeated Cairo's Al-Ahly, 3-1.

When the clashes began, about 22,000 people were inside the stadium, which can hold up to 25,000 people. About 2,000 Al-Ahly fans were at the game, authorities said.

Fans from both sides bashed each other with rocks and chairs. Many of those who died fell from the bleachers during the melee inside the stadium, while others suffocated.

It was unclear whether intense sports rivalries or political strife sparked the riots, though witnesses said tension was building through the game with Port Said fans throwing bottles and rocks at players on the Cairo team.

During Egypt's revolution that ended with the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, football fans became a powerful force for political change, according to CNN contributor James Montague, who wrote the book "When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone."

Even so, the riots occurred at a time when Egypt was struggling with a security vacuum following Mubarak's ouster.

In the hours after the riot in Port Said, protesters in Cairo chanted, "Down with military rule." At the time, the secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood party blamed Egypt's military for the deaths.

Egypt's interior ministry blamed fans for provoking police.

Witnesses said police did little to try to quell the clashes.

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Notre Dame president defends handling of Te'o case

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Top administrators at Notre Dame decided within hours of hearing about the Manti Te'o dead girlfriend hoax that it did not involve a crime and within two days had concluded there was no NCAA violation, according to a letter sent by the university president to board of trustee members on Friday.

The Rev. John Jenkins told trustees that despite "the unrelenting scrutiny of hundreds of journalists and countless others — and repeated attempts by some to create a different impression- no facts relating to the hoax have been at odds with what Manti told us" on Dec. 27-28.

The letter was obtained Friday by The Associated Press from a university official who provided it on condition of anonymity because the private school's internal workings are confidential.

The eight-page document, including a four-page letter from Jenkins and a four-page outline of how Notre Dame handled the hoax, is both a defense and an explanation of the school's actions.

"We did our best to get to the truth in extraordinary circumstances, be good stewards of the interests of the university and its good name and — as we do in all things — to make the well-being of our students one of our very highest priorities," Jenkins concluded in his letter.

Some of the timeline Notre Dame outlined is well known, including that its star linebacker disclosed the scam to his coaches the day after Christmas and it remained unknown to the public until Deadspin.com broke the story on Jan. 16, long after the Fighting Irish lost the BCS championship to Alabama on Jan. 7.

Jenkins wrote that Notre Dame officials talked in the hours after hearing from Te'o on Dec. 26 and agreed there was no indication of a crime or student conduct code violation. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick spoke with Te'o the next day, and on Dec. 28 the school concluded there were no indications of an NCAA rules violation, which could have put Notre Dame's 12-0 regular season in jeopardy.

The school then made moves to find out who was behind the hoax, thereby protecting Te'o and itself.

"For the first couple of days after receiving the news from Manti, there was considerable confusion and we simply did not know what there was to disclose," Jenkins wrote.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

On Jan. 2, after several days of internal discussion and a week after Te'o's disclosure, Notre Dame retained Stroz Friedberg, a New York computer forensics firm to investigate the case and whether any other football players had been targeted. The firm did not return phone or email messages left Friday.

Notre Dame officials believed Te'o's girlfriend — whether alive or dead — was at least a real person until the next day, when Stroz Friedberg said it could not find any evidence that Kekua or most of her relatives ever existed. And by Jan. 4, two days after hiring Stroz Friedberg, Notre Dame officials concluded Te'o was the victim of the hoax, there was no threat to the school and the private investigation was suspended.

"We concluded that this matter was personal to Manti," Jenkins wrote, deciding it was up to Te'o to disclose, especially after he signed with Creative Artists Agency on the day after the BCS game.

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WH, Senators to Begin Push on Immigration Reform

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators next week plan to begin their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

President Barack Obama will make an announcement on immigration during a Tuesday trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, the White House said on Friday. The Senate group is expected make their plans public around the same time, the Associated Press reported.

See Also: Where Do Labor Unions Stand on Immigration?

For Obama, immigration reform is a campaign promise that has remained unfulfilled from his first White House run in 2008. During his 2012 re-election campaign, the president vowed to renew his effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system. It has long been expected that Obama would roll out his plans shortly after his inauguration.

The president's trip to Las Vegas is designed "to redouble the administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year," the White House said.

Ever since November's election, in which Latino voters turned out in record numbers, Republicans and Democrats have expressed a desire to work on immigration reform. Obama has long supported a bill that would make many of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants without criminal records eligible to apply for an earned pathway to citizenship, which includes paying fines and learning English.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

But the debate over a pathway to citizenship is expected to be contentious. Other flashpoints in an immigration reform push could include a guest-worker program, workplace enforcement efforts, border security, and immigration backlogs.

In a statement, the White House said that "any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship."

Ahead of his immigration push next week, Obama met today with a group of lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), including chairman Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) , Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and CHC Immigration Task Force Chair Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the latter's office said. CHC members are expected to play a pivotal role in the debate.

"The president is the quarterback and he will direct the team, call the play, and be pivotal if we succeed. I am very optimistic based on conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate that we will do more than just talk about the immigration issue this year," Gutierrez said in a statement following the CHC meeting with Obama. "The president putting his full weight and attention behind getting a bill signed into law is tremendously helpful. We need the president and the American people all putting pressure on the Congress to act because nothing happens in the Capitol without people pushing from the outside."

A bipartisan group of eight senators, which includes Menendez, has also begun talks on drafting an immigration bill and will play an integral part in the process of passing a bill through Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been participating in talks with others senators, has also unveiled his own outline for an immigration proposal.

The group of senators have reportedly eyed Friday as the date when they'll unveil their separate proposal, according to the Washington Post.

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