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Hundreds of fans of Argentinean football (soccer) superstar Lionel Messi held a car caravan rally through the player’s hometown Thursday in hopes of persuading him to return to the organization where he began his career.After five months without football due to the coronavirus pandemic, the fans of the Newell’s Old Boys football club dusted off flags, donned the club’s symbolic red and black jerseys and staged a noisy and colorful caravan from the “Marcelo Bielsa” stadium to the Flag Monument in Rosario, well north of Buenos Aires.The initiative is based on the premise that the arrival of Messi is not only good for Newell’s but for all of Argentine football, since it could lead to higher profits in sponsors and international television rights.Club Newell’s Old Boys reportedly does not have the wealth of owners of other teams, such as Manchester City, but fans are hoping to rekindle a spirit of nostalgia that will lure the sports superstar home, stressing his return would be good for all of Argentine football.Hopes for Messi’s return accelerated earlier this week, when he revealed he did not want to remain with Barcelona, the team he signed with 20 years ago.Messi, who is a captain on the Argentina national team, has openly said he would like to play for Newell’s, but his next stop remains unclear.     
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Hurricane Laura pounded the U.S. Gulf Coast with torrential rain and ferocious wind of up to 241 kph as the Category 4 storm roared ashore Thursday in Louisiana near the Texas border. At least six deaths are reported. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Water covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and is crucial to life as we know it, but how it got here has been a longstanding scientific debate.The puzzle was a step closer to being solved Thursday after a French team reported in the journal Science they had identified which space rocks were responsible, and suggested our planet has been wet ever since it formed.Cosmochemist Laurette Piani, who led the research, told AFP the findings contradicted the prevalent theory that water was brought to an initially dry Earth by far-reaching comets or asteroids.According to early models for how the Solar System came to be, the large disks of gas and dust that swirled around the Sun and eventually formed the inner planets were too hot to sustain ice.This would explain the barren conditions on Mercury, Venus and Mars — but not our blue planet, with its vast oceans, humid atmosphere and well-hydrated geology.Scientists therefore theorized that the water came along after, and the prime suspects were meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites that are rich in hydrous minerals.But the problem was that their chemical composition doesn’t closely match our planet’s rocks.The carbonaceous chondrites also formed in the outer Solar System, making it less likely they could have pelted the early Earth.Planetary building blocksAnother group of meteorites, called enstatite chondrites, are a much closer chemical match, containing similar isotopes (types) of oxygen, titanium and calcium.This indicates they were Earth’s and the other inner planets’ building blocks.However, because these rocks formed close to the Sun, they had been assumed to be too dry to account for Earth’s rich reservoirs of water.To test whether this was really true, Piani and her colleagues at Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques (CRPG, CNRS/Universite de Lorraine) used a technique called mass spectrometry to measure the hydrogen content in 13 enstatite chondrites.The rocks are now quite rare, making up only about two percent of known meteorites in collections, and it is hard to find them in pristine, uncontaminated condition.The team found that the rocks contained enough hydrogen in them to provide Earth with at least three times the water mass of its oceans — and possibly much more.They also measured two isotopes of hydrogen, because the relative proportion of these is very different from one celestial object to another.”We found the hydrogen isotopic composition of enstatite chondrites to be similar to the one of the water stored in the terrestrial mantle,” said Piani, comparing it to a DNA match.The isotopic composition of the oceans was found to be consistent with a mixture containing 95% of water from the enstatite chondrites — more proof these were responsible for the bulk of Earth’s water.The authors further found that the nitrogen isotopes from the enstatite chondrites are similar to Earth’s — and proposed these rocks could also be the source of the most abundant component of our atmosphere.Piani added that research doesn’t exclude later addition of water by other sources like comets, but indicates that enstatite chondrites contributed significantly to Earth’s water budget at the time it formed.The work “brings a crucial and elegant element to this puzzle” wrote Anne Peslier, a planetary scientist for NASA, in an accompanying editorial.
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: Convalescent plasma has been “proven to reduce mortality by 35%” in those with COVID-19 infections.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: FactCheck.org Social Media DisinfoScreenshot Circulating on social media: Video purporting to show a COVID-19 patient who was nearly buried alive.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Agence France-PresseFactual Reads on CoronavirusCan mosquitoes spread the coronavirus?
No. While mosquitoes can spread some diseases, most notably malaria, experts say COVID-19 is not among them.
— Associated Press, August 25
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The Midwestern U.S. city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, remained calm Thursday after the first relatively peaceful night of protests since Sunday’s shooting of an African American man, Jacob Blake.  Demonstrators appeared to be more subdued Wednesday night after the chaos of the previous night when, police said, a 17-year-old from the neighboring state of Illinois fatally shot two demonstrators and wounded another. The teen was arrested Wednesday and was facing charges of first-degree intentional homicide, according to media reports.Armed groups that had been walking the streets were not seen Wednesday night, and protesters stayed clear of a courthouse where demonstrators and police had faced off earlier.    A sign, a bottle of alcohol and flowers are left in tribute to victims of a shooting during Tuesday night’s protests, at the site of the incident, during a protest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wis., Aug. 26, 2020.Demonstrators visited the scene where the protesters were killed and injured Tuesday, praying and laying flowers. Daijon Spann said he joined the demonstration to pay tribute to one of the people who were killed.  “I couldn’t take it anymore,” Spann told the Associated Press. “I couldn’t just sit and watch my friend die.” Police account of shootingEarlier Wednesday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice released the first official account of the shooting, which was caught on camera and led to four consecutive days of protests in Kenosha, about 60 kilometers south of Milwaukee on Lake Michigan.  According to the report, Kenosha police had been called to a residence “after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.”  Demonstrators take part in a protest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Aug. 26, 2020.The report says officers unsuccessfully used a Taser when trying to arrest Blake, 29, in the home’s front yard, then trailed him as he walked to his vehicle and opened the driver’s door. The Wisconsin DOJ said that as Blake leaned into the car, Officer Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, grabbed Blake by his shirt and fired his service weapon seven times into his back. None of the other officers on the scene fired their weapons.   The report noted that Kenosha police do not have body cameras on their uniforms.  Investigators said Wednesday that they found a knife on the driver’s side floorboard in Blake’s car, but no other weapons. The report said Blake had told officers he had a knife in his possession, although it was unclear whether Sheskey knew of the knife when he shot Blake or if Blake threatened the officer with the knife.  Attorneys for Blake say their client did not pose a threat to police and denied he was even in possession of a knife. They say he only wanted to get three of his young children who were in the vehicle “out of a volatile situation.” Calm in Kenosha began to prevail hours after the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday that it would open a civil rights inquiry into the police shooting of Blake. Blake was shot in the back Sunday, leaving him partially paralyzed from the waist down along with serious injuries to several of his internal organs.    The Justice Department said in a statement that the probe would be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in cooperation with Wisconsin state law enforcement investigators and other state authorities.   Arrest in IllinoisAs the investigation into Blake’s shooting continued, police arrested Kyle Rittenhouse at his home in Antioch, Illinois, about 24 kilometers from Kenosha. Rittenhouse, who was being held in Illinois, was also charged as a fugitive from justice, according to court records. His extradition hearing is scheduled for Friday.  Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks during news conference following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Aug. 27, 2020.According to Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse will be charged as an adult and has been assigned a public defender. The public defender’s office had no comment. On Tuesday, cellphone video was released showing a person carrying what appears to be an assault rifle running down a street and being chased by a group of people. The person shot at several of his pursuers as they began to surround him after he fell to the ground.  Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told reporters Wednesday that what happened Tuesday night in the streets of Kenosha was why people should not try to take the law into their own hands.  “I had a person call me and say, ‘Why don’t you deputize citizens who have guns to come out and patrol the city of Kenosha?’ … What happened last night … was probably the perfect reason why I wouldn’t,” Beth said.  President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he would “be sending federal law enforcement and the National Guard to Kenosha, WI to restore LAW and ORDER!” 
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The U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday it will open a civil rights probe into the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.Jacob Blake was shot in the back Sunday, leaving him partially paralyzed from the waist down along with serious injuries to several of his internal organs.The Justice Department issued a statement saying the probe will be handled by the FBI in cooperation with Wisconsin state law enforcement investigators and other state authorities.Earlier Wednesday, the Wisconsin Department of Justice released the first official account of the shooting that was caught on camera and led to four consecutive days of protests in Kenosha, located more than 60 kilometers south of Milwaukee on Lake Michigan.According to the report, Kenosha police had been called to a residence “after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.”The report says officers unsuccessfully used a Taser when trying to arrest the 29-year-old Blake in the home’s front yard, then trailed him as he walked to his vehicle and opened the driver’s door.The remains of the cars burned by protesters the previous night during a demonstration against the shooting of Jacob Blake are seen on a used cars lot in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 26, 2020.The Wisconsin DOJ said as Blake leaned into the car, Officer Rusten Sheskey,  a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, grabbed Blake by his shirt and fired his service weapon seven times into his back.  None of the other officers on the scene fired their weapons.The report noted that Kenosha police do not have body cameras on their uniforms.Investigators said Wednesday they found a knife on the driver’s side floorboard in Blake’s car, but no other weapons. The report said Blake had told officers he had a knife in his possession, although it is unclear whether Sheskey knew of the knife when he shot Blake or if Blake threatened the officer with the knife.Attorneys for Blake say their client did not pose a threat to police and denied he was even in possession of a knife. They say he only wanted to get three of his young children who were in the vehicle “out of a volatile situation.”As the investigation into Blake’s shooting continues, authorities said a 17-year-old male was arrested in Illinois in connection with the shooting deaths of two people late Tuesday night during a third consecutive night of protests in Kenosha.Police arrested Kyle Rittenhouse at his home in Antioch, Illinois, about 24 kilometers from Kenosha. Rittenhouse, who is being held in Illinois, was also charged as a fugitive from justice, according to court records. His extradition hearing is scheduled for Friday.According to Wisconsin law, Rittenhouse would be charged as an adult.On Tuesday, cellphone video was released showing a person carrying what appears to be an assault rifle running down a major street and being chased by a group of people. The apparent gunman shot at several of his pursuers as they began to surround him after he fell to the ground.Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told reporters Wednesday that what happened in the streets of Kenosha on Tuesday night is why people should not try to take the law into their own hands.Demonstrators protests the shooting of Jacob Blake on Aug. 26, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis.”I had a person call me and say, ‘Why don’t you deputize citizens who have guns to come out and patrol the city of Kenosha?’ …Oh, hell no. What happened last night…was probably the perfect reason why I wouldn’t,” Beth said.President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday he would “be sending federal law enforcement and the National Guard to Kenosha, WI to restore LAW and ORDER!”White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany released a statement Wednesday that said, “President Trump condemns violence in all forms and believes we must protect all Americans from chaos and lawlessness.”Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers announced he was doubling the number of National Guard troops deployed to Kenosha to 500.U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec tweeted that FBI agents and U.S. Marshals were being deployed to the city in response to the unrest.In a video tweeted Wednesday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he talked to Blake’s parents and told them “justice must and will be done.””Once again, a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by the police. In front of his children. It makes me sick. Is this the country we want to be? Needless violence won’t heal us. We need to end the violence and peacefully come together to demand justice,” Biden said.Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, also talked about the Wisconsin shootings during an online event Wednesday in Michigan, and said, “And what happened there is so tragic and still represents the two systems of justice in America. There are still two systems of justice in America.”The National Basketball Association’s Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their scheduled playoff game on Wednesday to protest Blake’s shooting, prompting four other teams to boycott their scheduled games. The boycott caused a ripple effect across other major professional sports, with the Women’s NBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer also boycotting and postponing games.  
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Hurricane Laura has weakened slightly after making landfall earlier Thursday morning in the southeastern state of Louisiana as a dangerous Category 4 storm.  The National Hurricane Center says Laura is now carrying maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers an hour, making it a Category 3 storm on the five-level scale that measures a hurricane’s potential strength and destructiveness. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 5 MB480p | 7 MB540p | 9 MB720p | 17 MB1080p | 35 MBOriginal | 40 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioHurricane Laura made landfall early Thursday morning in the coastal town of Cameron, Louisiana, located about 86 kilometers south of Lake Charles. The storm triggered life-threatening storm surges, flash floods and extreme winds when it first made landfall, but forecasters are now saying Laura will weaken rapidly as it makes its way northward across Louisiana Thursday, eventually becoming a tropical storm later in the day.  The storm continues to head towards the city of Lake Charles at a rapid speed of 24 kilometers an hour, but storm surge, tropical storm warnings and hurricane watches in parts of neighboring Texas and Louisiana have been discontinued. Laura is still predicted to soak parts of the South with massive rainfall as it moves inland and weakens.      But forecasters say it could strengthen back to a tropical storm as it moves into the warm Atlantic by early next week and threaten the northeast.     Laura killed 24 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti when it struck there as a tropical storm earlier this week.   
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A New Zealand court has handed down a life sentence without parole to a self-avowed white supremacist who admitted to killing 51 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in New Zealand last year.Australian Brenton Tarrant did not speak when Christchurch High Court Judge Cameron Mander handed down the sentence Thursday on the last day of a four-day sentencing hearing. It is the first time a life sentence without parole has ever been imposed in New Zealand.Judge Mander called Tarrant’s actions “inhuman” as he handed down the sentence and described the 29-year-old as “entirely self-absorbed.”“You are empty of any empathy for your victims,” the judge told Tarrant.Tarrant told the judge through his court-appointed lawyer that he did not oppose his life sentence without parole. He had dismissed his original lawyers last month.About 90 survivors and family members of the March 15, 2019, attacks at the al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch gave victim statements during the sentencing hearings. Tarrant sat impassively as the witnesses testified in varying degrees of emotions, from red hot anger to expressions of forgiveness.Tarrant unexpectedly pleaded guilty back in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and one charge of terrorism. Hours before carrying out the shootings, Tarrant published a long manifesto online explaining his reasonings for the attacks. He then livestreamed the attacks on Facebook, which was viewed by scores of people around the world before it was taken down.It was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand’s history. The massacre led to a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles and a new nationwide firearms registry that traces every gun in New Zealand.
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Health care workers in Peru protested outside the Ministry of Health and one of largest hospitals in the capital, Lima, Wednesday, demanding better working conditions and pay as infections of the novel coronavirus spread among their colleagues.The protesters washed disposable masks outside of the National Hospital Edgardo Rebagliati Martins to bring attention to what they complain is a lack of protective supplies.During Wednesday’s street demonstration, anti-riot police attempted to stop protesters from advancing.Healthcare professionals say they deserve better pay considering the heightened risk they take using inadequate protective gear while attending to patients with the contagious disease.Minister of Health Pilar Mazzetti on Monday called the street demonstrations regrettable, saying medical workers taking part in the protests neglected their patients.Dr. Godofredo Talavera, president of the Medical Federation, rejected a claim saying personnel participating in the demonstrations were off duty.Peru has confirmed more than 610,000 coronavirus cases and more than 28,000 deaths, both tallies among the highest in Latin America.       
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The only Native American on federal death row was put to death Wednesday, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged President Donald Trump to halt the execution on the ground it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty.With the execution of Lezmond Mitchell for the grisly slayings of a 9-year-old and her grandmother, the federal government under the pro-death penalty president has now carried out more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined.Asked by a prison official if he had any last words for victims’ family members and other witnesses behind glass at the death chamber, Mitchell responded, “No, I’m good.”Mitchell was pronounced dead at 6:29 p.m. EDT after receiving a lethal injection of pentobarbital inside the small, pale green death chamber at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The lethal injection began about 26 minutes before he was pronounced dead.Mitchell, 38, and an accomplice were convicted of killing Tiffany Lee and Alyce Slim, 63, after the grandmother offered them a lift as they hitchhiked on the Navajo Nation in 2001. They stabbed Slim 33 times, slit Tiffany’s throat and stoned her to death. They later mutilated both bodies.Late appeals failTribal leaders’ bid to persuade Trump to commute Mitchell’s sentence to life in prison failed, as did last-minute appeals by his lawyers for a stay. The first three federal executions in 17 years went ahead in July after similar legal maneuvers failed. Keith Nelson, who was also convicted of killing a child, is slated to die Friday.Critics accuse Trump of pushing to resume executions after a nearly 20-year hiatus in a quest to claim the mantle of law-and-order candidate. Mitchell’s execution occurred during the GOP’s convention week.”Today’s decision means we will never know for sure whether anti-Native American bias influenced the jury’s decision to sentence Lezmond Mitchell to death,” his lawyers, Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi, said in a statement, reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case. “Mr. Mitchell’s life is in President Trump’s hands, and we hope the president will demonstrate his respect for tribal sovereignty and grant Mr. Mitchell the mercy of executive clemency.” Nelson also is slated to die at the Terre Haute prison, where all federal executions are carried out with pentobarbital. Nelson’s lawyers say pentobarbital can cause severe pain and should be deemed unconstitutional.Death-penalty advocates say the Trump administration’s restart of executions is bringing justice too long delayed to victims and families. There are currently 58 men and one woman on federal death row, many of whose executions have been pending for over 20 years.’He will have to answer to God’Donel Lee, Tiffany Lee’s older brother, thanked Trump for not stopping the execution and criticized the opposition by the Navajo Nation president.”He will have to answer to God why he wanted this murderer to live,” Donel Lee said. “But now I’m at peace with it and justice is served. Now he [Mitchell] has to answer to God, and I hope my little sister was standing there with God while he judged him.”Tiffany Lee’s father, Daniel Lee, has told The Associated Press, he believes in the principle of “an eye for an eye” and wanted Mitchell to die for the slayings. He also said Navajo leaders don’t speak for him: “I speak for myself and for my daughter.”Family and friends described Slim, a school bus driver who was approaching retirement, as gracious, spiritual and well-liked by students on her route.Michael Slim, the grandson and cousin of the victims, has sat on both sides of the courtroom during Mitchell’s court cases. An outlier in his family, he supported putting Mitchell to death but gradually changed his mind over the years and said that should be left up to God.”We are all guilty of sin, so it’s not fair for us to condemn someone,” he said. “It’s not my job to say ‘we should kill him.’ “Slim wrote to Mitchell last year saying he wanted to be his friend and advocate for him to be released from death row. As the execution neared, Slim said he was in constant prayer.”I keep thinking good thoughts about him,” he said Tuesday.
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A typhoon that grazed South Korea, ripping off roofs and knocking out power to more than 1,600 households, made landfall in North Korea early Thursday. South Korean authorities said there were no immediate reports of casualties, and North Korea has not reported any damages.Packing maximum winds of 133 kph, Typhon Bavi was barreling north and just 70 kilometers southwest of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, South Korea’s weather agency said.South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety said there were no immediate reports of casualties, despite damage to buildings, walls, roads and other structures. The Korea Meteorological Administration warned that strong winds will continue in the Seoul capital area and the country’s central region through the morning.Power was knocked out in 1,633 South Korean homes, including 887 on the southern resort island of Jeju, which was the first part of the country to be hit by the typhoon on Wednesday, and more than 600 in mainland regions. By 6 a.m., power had been restored to most of the homes, but at least 96 households in the island county of Sinan remained without electricity.More than 430 domestic flights in and out of Jeju and the southern mainland city of Busan were canceled as of Thursday morning. South Korean authorities also halted some railroad services, shut down public parks and sea bridges and moved hundreds of fishing boats and passenger vessels to safety.Dozens of makeshift coronavirus testing stations had been dismantled in the capital Seoul and other major cities out of concerns the tents and booths would not withstand the strong winds.North Korea’s state media did not immediately report of any damage caused by the typhoon.The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said earlier this week that leader Kim Jong Un had called for thorough preparations to minimize casualties and damages from the typhoon.The storm comes weeks after torrential rains caused flooding and massive damages to homes and crops in North Korea, inflicting further pain to an economy ravaged by pandemic-linked border closures and U.S.-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear program.State media said a typhoon warning was issued in most areas of North Korea, with officials moving fishing boats and applying protective measures to buildings, farms and railroads. 
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A small number of U.S. troops were injured during an incident with Russian forces in Syria, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday. While such interactions between American and Russian forces are not rare, the incident highlights the risks of troops from both countries operating in close proximity in northern Syria and the potential for an escalation in tensions. One of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the injuries were a result of a collision and not any exchange of fire. The other official said the incident took place earlier this week in northeastern Syria and the injuries were mild. FILE – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 4, 2020.The Pentagon and the U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, declined to comment. The U.S. military said the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley spoke with his Russian counterpart Wednesday, but provided no details on what was discussed. The U.S. military does not generally comment on injuries. However, last month a paratrooper was killed during a vehicle rollover accident in eastern Syria. Previous encountersVideos on social media showed Russian military vehicles, backed by a pair of helicopters, driving dangerously close to U.S. armored vehicles. The origin of the videos was unclear.  Earlier this year, another video showed a close interaction between troops on a Syrian road. About 500 U.S forces remain in northern Syria after a sharp reduction in troops that were initially there to drive out Islamic State militants from all of their strongholds in the country.Some of the areas also have oil resources, something President Donald Trump has cited as a justification for keeping U.S. troops partnered with Kurdish allies in the region. The injuries were first reported by Politico.  
 
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