The Atlantic: Scientists Have Found Another Crow That Uses Tools

In 2013, Christian Rutz travelled to Hawaii, and presented two crows with a log containing several small holes. These had been baited with meat, but were too small and deep for the crows to reach with their beaks. “Within literally seconds, one of the birds came down, looked for a stick, began probing into the holes, and started extracting the food,” he says. The crow had been raised in captivity and had never done anything like this before. And yet, it was wielding the stick like a pro. “I could tell from its dexterity that it wasn’t just a fluke. It was one of those rare moments when you know you’ve made a big discovery.”

You might be thinking that scientists have long known that some crows are exceptional tool users. Let me assure you that, yes, Rutz knows about those crows. He has studied them for a decade in the Pacific island of New Caledonia where they live. He has seen them artfully use sticks to pry grubs from wood. He has seen them care for their tools and fashion new innovative implements. But as far as he knew, their prowess was unique. There are over 40 other species of crows and ravens, and none seem to use tools so readily or skillfully as the New Caledonian crow. [...]

Many animal species can be trained to use tools in captivity even when they don’t do so naturally. That includes the rook—the Hawaiian crow’s closest relative. It can quickly learn to probe holes with sticks (albeit clumsily), but despite decades of regular bird-watching, no one has ever seen a wild rook use a stick tool.

The same could be said of Hawaiian crows, but Rutz says, “I truly believe that in the past, these birds would have used tools in the wild.” The captive adults all did so spontaneously and exactingly. Rutz even tested seven recently hatched chicks, which had never used sticks before and had no chances to observe tool-proficient adults. Their human keepers had been briefed to never use tools in front of them. [...]

Narcissists that we are, we humans like to associate tool use with great intelligence. But the crows tell us that tool use might be a precarious skill, which might only emerge under the right combination of ecological privilege and fortuitous physique.

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Salon: Jews must speak out against Islamophobia: Standing with our Muslim brothers and sisters is critical

“I do have faith that, down the road, just like the Jews faced a lot of negativity in the past in the U.S. — and the Irish, the Italians, the Japanese, you know the entire list— things are going to be the same for Muslims,” she had told me. “It’s going to take a lot of time and effort from the Muslim-American community.”

But the arson at the Orlando mosque served as a reminder to me that the Muslim-American community shouldn’t have to go through this alone. More than ever, Jews and other marginalized groups have a moral responsibility to stand with our nation’s Muslims as they continue to face bigotry and persecution.

The good news is that over the past year many Jews have taken steps to do precisely that. In December Jewish activists held demonstrations on each day of Hanukkah  in 15 U.S. cities to protest anti-Muslim hate speech and public policies. In May, nine Jewish groups joined more than 30 other organizations to support a bill that would forbid the government to turn away immigrants based on religion, a clear response to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration. Around the same time, the American Jewish Community called for The Citadel to let Muslim students wear hijabs, while in New Jersey the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists lent their support to Muslims who are trying to build a mosque in the town of Basking Ridge.

And in recent years some Muslims have clearly demonstrated their rejection of anti-Semitism. In 2013 11 prominent imams, sheiks and religious teachers traveled to Auschwitz from nine nations to counter Holocaust denial. Also that year President Barack Obama personally congratulated a young Swedish Muslim activist, Siavosh Derakhti, for having founded Young People Against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia to combat prejudice in his country. In November 2015 hundreds of Norwegian Muslims formed a human shield around a synagogue in Oslo to express solidarity with the Jewish community there after an attack on a synagogue in Denmark. And in the March Democratic primary in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with many Muslims and Arab-Americans, a majority of voters voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who happens to be the country’s first major Jewish presidential candidate.

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Al Jazeera Syrian students find new home at Mexico university

They were members of the Habesha Project - a Mexican NGO that relocates Syrian students to Mexico to continue their academic careers, interrupted by the conflict in Syria."

As a Kurd, my options have always been limited," says Hazem, who is from al-Malikiyah in the mainly Kurdish Hasakah governorate of northern Syria.

"In Syria, we could never get government jobs or study certain majors in school."

Like many Kurds, Hazem describes the institutional discrimination he witnessed while living in Syria, which has led to many Kurds finding themselves torn during the conflict - with rebel forces seeking recruits from backgrounds presumed to have an instinctive animosity towards Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government while, on the other hand, military checkpoints were profiling racial minorities and imprisoning suspected dissidents and deserters. [...]

he Habesha Project is the brainchild of Adrian Melendez, the programme's coordinator. The project arranges for students to arrive in Mexico like any visiting foreign student - not as asylum seekers. Melendez is currently in consultation with European institutions to illustrate how the model is both economic and replicable in other countries.

Students enrol in intensive Spanish classes at Universidad Panamericana, where a volunteer student committee helps them to integrate through cultural activities and informational evenings. When they are ready, students can apply for courses at different universities around Mexico.

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Nerdwriter1: How To Correct Donald Trump In Real Time

The Telegraph: Archbishop: nothing improper about gay sex

Christians who support same-sex marriage are not “abandoning the Bible” the Archbishop of Wales has insisted, as he told leading Anglicans that sex in a committed gay or lesbian relationship is perfectly “proper”. [...]

In his address he cites a string of examples from both the Old Testament and New Testament in which, he said, different passages effectively contradict each other on topics as diverse as the status of eunuchs in Jewish society to the use of violence in retribution.

“What all this shows is that within the Scriptures themselves, there are radical shifts in understanding in what it means to discern the will of God,” he said. [...]

Last week the Bishop of Grantham, the Rt Rev Nicholas Chamberlain, disclosed that he is in a same sex relationship but made clear that he observes celibacy.

But Dr Morgan pointedly rejected the celibacy requirement, quoting a passage from a recent book of essays on the subject, entitled Amazing Love, which argues: “Christians have discovered that most people flourish best when this living for others finds its focus in a commitment to one other person: when a couple make a lifelong commitment within which sex properly belongs.”

He added: “Those of us who were or are married have found that to be the case.  Why would we want to deny such a possibility for those who are attracted to their own gender?”

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