Category Archives: Post Human

La Vache. (photo credit:Courtesy)

If youve ever longed to see a feel-good road movie about a man bringing a prize cow from Algeria to Paris, your wait is over.

Mohamed Hamidis La Vache (its English title is the overly literal One Man and His Cow) is a charming, old-fashioned story that, at its best, recalls the classic Hollywood road comedies, in the Frank Capra mode. Are there surprises along the way? No, not really. Will you enjoy the trip anyway? If youre not too cynical, its quite likely that you will. This is the kind of gentle comedy where even the bad guys are not really that bad, which used to be a mainstay of movies.

Fatah (Fatsah Bouyahmed) is a nebbish who lives in a small village in Algeria, where he gets pushed around by Naima (Hajar Masdouki), the strong-willed, beautiful wife he adores but fears, and he dotes on his two young daughters. But the one in whom he confides, the one he feels most comfortable with, is his prize cow, Jacqueline. If ever a cow could act, its this one. Fatah has always dreamed of entering her in the agricultural fair in Paris, and finally he gets invited to go.

This opportunity exposes the different ways the villagers relate to the outside world and to Western culture in general. Some encourage him, wishing that they could go, too, while others caution that he will be corrupted by the experience.

Obviously, he goes, and its a daunting journey. You cant Fedex a cow, so they take a boat to Marseilles, and he plans to walk all the way to Paris. The movie really hits its stride once he and Jacqueline are on French country roads. Wherever they go, they meet people who are kindly and eccentric. And although Fatah is far from home, the villagers get to follow his every move through social media.

Thinking he is drinking pear juice, he gets drunk and is photographed in what looks like an embrace with a woman.

Naturally, he worries about what will happen when he heads back home. But no matter how he feels, he still has to get Jacqueline to Paris.

There are various subplots along the way, notably when he stops to watch an antigovernment demonstration and gets arrested. Some French people express anti-Muslim feelings, but Fatahs charm resolves that pretty quickly. This movie doesnt really have much to say about politics; the closest it gets to political commentary is to show that his Algerian small town is much the same as the French small towns he stops in i.e., that everyone and every place is basically the same.

A movie like this rises or falls on the performances, and in Fatsah Bouyahmed, the director found the perfect actor to embody Fatahs sweetness. Bouyahmed is a combination of a stand-up comedian and a modern-day Chaplin. I could believe in his simplicity and modesty without finding him cloying, quite a feat.

In addition to Bouyahmed, La Vache makes good use of some of the best supporting actors in France. Britain has always been known for its character actors, but France has some terrific ones, too.

Lambert Wilson, an extremely handsome man, often gets fairly dull leading-man roles. Here, he has the chance to be a bit quirkier in the role of the debt-ridden aristocrat who helps Fatah realize his dreams. Jamel Debbouze, who plays Fatahs brother-in-law, an Algerian who is proud of the life he has made for himself but who also tries to hide it from his family back home, brings real conviction to the part.

And, of course, Jacqueline the cow steals most of her scenes.

La Vache is beautifully photographed, and both its Algerian and French locations look so lovely that it would be a shame to see the film anywhere other than in a theater.

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The milk of human kindness - The Jerusalem Post

RIVER FALLS, Wis. The bearded body piercer with tattooed forearms tells Sam Bengtson to take a deep breath, and then he plunges in the needle, implanting a microchip into the software engineer's hand.

That was nothing, Bengston says, as the piercer smooths a bandage onto his skin.

The radio-frequency identification tag now lodged between his index finger and thumb will allowBengtson to open doors and log onto his computer at work with a wave.

His employer paid for the device, which costs about $300, and threw a chip party for employees at its headquarters Tuesday, handing out blue T-shirts that say: I got chipped.

[Do I let my employer microchip me?]

About 50 employees agreed to be implanted with the devices.

Three Square Market, which designs software for vending machine, hopes to soon launch a global microchip-reader business, marketing the technology to other firms.

But first they have to conquer reservations about the devices.

Patrick McMullan, the chief operating officer,said he and another executive learned about Biohax, the Swedish start-up that produces the implants, about six months ago during a business trip to Europe.

The microchips are about as big as a grain of rice, and enable the wearer to perform various tasks such as entering a building or making a payment.

The company already uses similar proximity readers in its vending machines.Shoppers can tap a credit card and walk away with a soda.

With microchips, McMullan said, the company could take their products to the next level of convenience and beyond the vending industry.

If were going to work on this, we need to know how it works, he said. I cant go research technology that were not willing to use ourselves.

As of now, implants are practically useless in the United States. But Three Square Market is betting that will soon change. People in Sweden can already use the chips astrain tickets,the company said.

Bengston, the engineer, said he doesnt feel like a guinea pig. His information is encrypted, he said, which means its more secure in his hand than on, say, a cellphone.

He plans to build an application that will enable him to start his Toyota Tundra with a touch. If the program works, he said, the company could sell it.

I want to have that in about a week, he said with a grin.

Microchips aren't new. Pets and livestock are tagged. Deliveries, too. Chips that pierce human skin, however, have a history of fizzling out on American soil.

Technology analysts fear the chips could ease the way for hackers. Some churchgoers say the devices violate their religious beliefs.

Stapled on a tree outside the companys lot was a flyer that said: *WARNING* Microchipping employees.

Sixteen years ago, Applied Digital Solutions, a company in Delray Beach, Fla., introduced a microchip called VeriChip that could be implanted in human arms to store medical records.

Doctors said at the time that they hoped to trace a patients history with a hand scanner a useful ability, the company asserted, if someone is unconscious or confused.

But while VeriChip won approval from the Food and Drug Administration in2004, the device never caught on with consumers. Some people expressed privacy concerns: Could they be tracked?

By 2008, the company stopped making the device, citing low sales.

However, VeriChip motivated states to consider the legal quandaries a future with microchips could present.

After the device hit the market, Wisconsin outlawed mandatory implants.

Marlin Schneider, the former state representative who introduced the measure, said in 2005 that he wanted to get ahead of employers requiring workers to get chipped, or prisons forcing inmates to do the same.

Eventually, people will find reasons why everyone should have these chips implanted, Schneider told reporters at the time.

California, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma also banned tagging without consent, with lawmakers asserting the chips could lead to serious privacy breaches, such as covert monitoring.

Michael Zimmer, a professor of information studies at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, said its hard to predict how hackers could evolve to exploit seemingly impenetrable devices.

Often what appears to be simple technologies, he said, shift into becoming infrastructures of surveillance used for purposes far beyond what was originally intended.

Workers have resisted similar technology because of their religious beliefs.

Two years ago, a coal miner in West Virginia, backed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, won a discrimination case in federal court after his employer mandated a hand scanner to clock in.

The coal miner said he was forced to retire after declining to use the scanner, which he believed was the mark of the beast a sign of evil and the end times, discussed in the Bible, that is said to appear on the right hand. He was awarded $150,000 in damages.

Cordarrel Lyrek, 28, feels the same way about Three Market Squares microchips.

The Minneapolis resident, who makes T-shirts for a living, said he made the 45-minute drive Monday to River Falls to hang protest posters on trees and business windows. A Christian, he put his phone number on the flier, hoping people would call to talk about God.

It says in the Bible thats a sign of the beast, Lyrek said. But its not only about that. Its about invading people's privacy.

McMullan, the Three Square Market executive, wondered if protesters would storm the companys property during the chip party. Dozens of peoplehad commentedboycott on their Facebook page.

But none came Tuesday. Under a clear sky, the campus was quiet. Outside the window were stretches of green, cornfields and a Lutheran church that resembles a red barn.

At the nearby dairy farm, Jason Kjos, 51, was feeding his chickens as a yellow cat watched.

He was raised Catholic and heard about the companys plans on the news. Kjos didnt care about it. Automation had made his life easier. Maybe microchips would help his neighbors.

Its technology, he said. Technology moves at the speed of light. Whatever we think is crazy or impossible is either already happening or in development.

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Foxconn announces new factory in Wisconsin in much-needed win for Trump and Scott Walker

In this part of the Midwest, the problem isn't China. It's too many jobs

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Some feared hackers and the devil. Others got microchipped. - Washington Post

Stories from the Human Library launch at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh East Liberty branch on Monday, July 31, 2017.

The meeting space was standing-room-only at the Carnegie Library branch in East Liberty at Mondays launch of Pittsburghs Human Library project.

A library is, essentially, a collection of information and stories that live inside books, on tape or via DVD. In a human library, the stories are told aloud by the people who lived them. The idea started in Denmark in 2000, as a way to break down stereotypes and has since made its way around the world.

Dan Schlegel, 67, of McKeesportwas one of the storytellers at Mondays event. The audience was rapt as he recounted how he nearly lost his life on his 21stbirthday, three weeks after deploying to Vietnam. He was in the outhouse, feeling sorry for himself that hed have no cake or candles that year.

Then all of a sudden I hear [a whistling sound], I know its a rocket, I hit the floor, next thing I know, the whole outhouse blows up on top of me, Im shaking but I can feel fingers and toes and my nose, and Im like Well, Im still alive, Schlegel said.

It was the first of many experiences that all added up to leave Schlegel with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The best description I can give is when I came home from Vietnam, my body came back, but I felt like my mind was in hold baggage. It didnt show up for close to a year, he said.

Evalynn Farkas, 21, a senior at Chatham University, said she also suffers from PTSD.

Sometimes I tell my friends I feel like a ghost, Farkas said. Not existing inside this world or outside of it. Thats the best way I know to describe it.

She said growing up in an abusive home and surviving multiple rapes and sexual assaults has caused her to experience memory loss, panic attacks, anxiety and nightmares. But she said the library and academic have been her solace, and despite the challenges she faces she holds four jobs and is on track to graduate in May. She said she hopes to build a career helping other women who have experienced trauma.

You are here, you will heal, Farkas said. Be gentle to yourself.

Jayme Lynn McIntyre, 57, of East Liberty, said after living as a man for more than 50 years, surviving sexual assault, and struggling with addiction, she became depressed and suicidal.

I can be in a really big room like this and we can all be laughing and talking, and meanwhile Im thinking Id love to get up on that damn steeple and just swan dive off and end it, you know, just end it, McIntyre said.

She credited the behavioral health and social services available in Pittsburgh with saving her life. And though it took her decades to start living as her authentic self, she said its better late than never.

I want you all to know that its never too late to [join] the party just show the hell up, she said.

Organizers said this weeks event was only a launch, and that they expect more Human Library events to pop up around the city exploring different topics in a variety of settings in the coming months.

Groups and individuals interested in hosting a Human Library event can get in touch with Kali Stull at the Consumer Health Coalition.

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At The Human Library, The Books Are People And The Stories Are All True - 90.5 WESA

YouTube has said AI is, in some cases, better than humans at purging extremist videos from within its walls, and that machine learning tech has helped it double the speed at which it is able to take down content which violates the rules.

According to YouTube its AI systems have proven more effective than human beings at flagging videos which need to be removed.

Just over a month ago the platforms parent company announced plans to increase its use of machine learning technology to help it identify extremist and terrorism-related videos on YouTube. The move was part of a four-pronged strategy to combat the spread of such content online following a brand safety crisis earlier on this year, during which giants like M&S, the Guardian and the UK government pulled ad spend from YouTube and the Google Display Network following concerns over unintentional ad misplacement.

The tech giant has now posted an update saying it has made progress in tackling the issue, which in some cases resulted in neo-Nazi videos and extreme pornography appearing adjacent to ads from household names.

YouTube claimed that during the past month or so when it's been testing new AI-powered detection and removal tools that over 75% of the videos it has removed for violent extremism were purged before receiving a single human flag. The platform has said it believes the accuracy of its systems have improved dramatically due to machine learning.

With over 400 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube each minute, there was previously a significant challenge in finding and taking action over such footage, but the video giant said its initial use of machine learning has more than doubled the number of videos it has removed featuring violent or extreme content, as well doubling the rate at which such content is removed.

YouTube has always used a mix of technology and human review to address controversial content on YouTube, but the latest developments indicate that investment in the AI space following the brand safety furore is bearing fruit.

Google's strategy to tackle the spread of extremism online and protect advertisers, also includes tougher standards for videos and the recruitment of more experts to flag content in need of review. Earlier this year, Google also inked a deal with ComScore to provide independent verification that its inventory is brand safe.

The platform said it has started working with 15 more NGOs and organisations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in an effort to improve the systems understanding of issues around hate speech, radicalisation and terrorism to better handle extremist content.

In the wake of the brand safety furore some Omnicom was one such ad giant which took it upon itself to calm advertisers worried their ads are at risk of being misplaced against inappropriate content on YouTube using a mixture of AI and human intelligence. At the time the holding group detailed plans to sift through hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos daily to ensure they are safe for its advertisers to appear against.

Google's brand safety scare seems to have largely unaffected its bottom line, and consumer perceptions remain high with the firm topping YouGov's recent brand health ranking index.

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YouTube says AI better than humans at removing extremist videos post-brand safety crisis - The Drum

The Jacksonville City Council is advancing a bill that would add hotels to the list of businesses required to post human-trafficking awareness signs. The councils Neighborhoods Community Service, Public Health and Safety committee approved it Monday morning.

State law requires the signs, which include the phone number for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, (888) 373-7888, be posted in strip clubs and massage parlors. Under a city ordinance, those businesses can be fined $500 if they dont post the signs.

Human trafficking prosecuting attorney Erin Wolfson said during Mondays meeting, hotels are an important addition.

Right now that is where we get most of our cases from are from hotels, whether theyre along the (Interstate) 95 corridor or out by the airport or at the end of JTB and Baymeadows area, Wolfson said.

Lt. Richard Buoye with Jacksonville Sheriffs Offices Integrity Unit said hotels would have to post the signs in back room areas for their employees to see.

One thing Ive found out is our best cases always come from someone who either lives or works in that area and they know that area and something just isnt right, he said.

City Councilman Tommy Hazouri is sponsoring the bill. Hed planned to also add food service establishments to the list but said it included too many types of businesses like food trucks, and enforcement would be difficult. He said he may seek to add the requirement back for certain restaurants with future legislation.

We might narrow (restaurants) down based on capacity, Hazouri said.

He said hed eventually like to get awareness out to people involved in domestic work like housekeeping and lawn care.

Those are areas where labor trafficking does occur, said Northeast Florida attorney Crystal Freed. Freed, who almost exclusively represents victims of trafficking, said community education is important to address that problem.

Hazouris bill will go before the Rules Committee this week before the full Council has the opportunity to vote on it.

Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.

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More Jacksonville Businesses Might Have To Hang Human Trafficking Signs - WJCT NEWS

The likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google are about to go to war with the U.S. Congress over the most unlikely of causes: Human trafficking.

A new bill by Republican Sen. Rob Portman backed by 19 other lawmakers from both parties would open the door for state attorneys general and victims alike to take legal action against social networks, review websites, advertisers and others that dont do enough to combat users who post exploitative content.

But the proposal is already drawing opposition from Silicon Valley, where tech companies want to put an end to human trafficking but dont want to do so in a way that also subjects them to new lawsuits.

The fight centers on a website for classified ads called Backpage, which investigators in Congress and elsewhere long have alleged is a haven for illegal prostitution and underage exploitation.

For years, though, Backpage has dodged significant scrutiny with the help of a portion of federal law that generally spares website owners from being held liable for the third-party content posted by their users. The legal shield is known as Section 230, and its part of the Communications Decency Act. And for many in Silicon Valley, its something of a holy grail: They claim the 1996-era rules allowed the internet to evolve without fear of lawsuits.

To that end, Portman and his allies want to weaken that shield just a little bit, ensuring that websites that facilitate sex trafficking can be held liable and that victims can get justice, they said in a statement. Their proposal would give state attorneys general new power to prosecute offenders, while allowing victims to sue those websites and potentially others, like the ad networks that support them.

Reacting to the bill Tuesday, the Internet Association a group that represents companies like Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter for the first time said the Justice Department should prosecute Backpage and other rogue operators to the fullest extent of the law. The DOJ has never opened such a probe, despite lawmakers repeated requests.

Still, the Washington, D.C.-based tech lobbying group slammed the bill by Portman and others as overly broad and counterproductive in the fight to combat human trafficking. For one thing, the Internet Association said the measure would inadvertently create a new wave of frivolous and unpredictable actions against legitimate companies rather than addressing underlying criminal behavior.

Furthermore, it will impose new, substantial liability risks for companies that take proactive measures to prevent trafficking online, hampering the ability of websites to fight illegal activity, Beckerman continued in a statement. The bill also jeopardizes bedrock principles of a free and open internet, with serious economic and speech implications well beyond its intended scope.

For now, Backpage already has shut down the adult section of its website. It took that step ahead of a contentious Senate hearing earlier this year, convened by Portman and his committees top Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Claire McCaskill, who had been investigating it since 2015.

Entering the hearing, lawmakers charged that Backpage actually had lost its legal privileges under Section 230 because it specifically helped promote sex-related ads on its classifieds site, a fact confirmed by the Washington Post in its own investigation. Backpage repeatedly has denied the charges, and the company could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, opted in January against taking a case related to Backpage. Victims in Massachusetts who said they were as young as 15 years old when they were advertised as prostitutes on the website had appealed to the nations justices after a lower court ruled in the websites favor, citing Section 230 and its shield from liability.

To be sure, the federal government already has tools at its disposal to prosecute websites that knowingly advertise or facilitate human trafficking. But Portman and McCaskill want to stiffen the penalties, and in their aim, theyve recruited a deep bench of powerful Senate allies from both parties, including Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Bill Nelson, and GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and John McCain.

Their effort also has support outside of the U.S. Capitol from the likes of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The group wrote in a letter to lawmakers sent Tuesday that the measure would help civil attorneys and state attorneys general assist victims in holding responsible everyone who participated in their trafficking.

Previously, though, tech giants have fought vigorously against any attempt to weaken Section 230.

A slew of cities and states that sought to regulate listings on Airbnb, for example, met fierce resistance from the home-sharing company and its internet counterparts, which brandished the law in resulting court fights. Others, like Facebook, have held up the provisions amid accusations that their websites helped facilitate terrorism and courts generally have agreed.

Much as with human trafficking, tech companies mounted similar arguments in those fights: They wanted to address regulators concerns, from deleting illegal or predatory housing ads to combating online extremism. But they didnt want to do it at the expense of a law that has shielded them from lawsuits and other forms of legal liability.

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Tech companies fear repercussions from a new bill in the US Congress to combat human trafficking - Recode

Im a Turkish journalist. Ive spent my career criticizing politicians. I have always seen that as my job.

Yet I now find myself in the unaccustomed position of singing the praises of one of them the remarkable Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. When we learned last week that he was afflicted with brain cancer, the news not only jolted Washingtons political scene but also sent a shock wave through the community of human rights defenders around the globe.

Its important to appreciate just how unusual this is. These two worlds the politicians and the activists almost never agree on anything. Yet McCain enjoys immense respect in both of them.

That should help to explain why his medical diagnosis was top news not only in the United States but also across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Since the news of his illness broke, my phone hasnt stopped ringing. Journalist and activist friends from Afghanistan and Ukraine, from Egypt and Turkey have been calling in shock and dismay, refusing to accept the news.

The first time I met McCain was at a meeting in Brussels during the George W. Bush administration. At the time, the European Union was outraged by the CIAs clandestine flights and torture policies. McCains clear and resolute stance against torture came as a huge relief to the United Statess allies in Europe. The world would be a safer place if Sen. McCain was the U.S. president, one Dutch diplomat told me.

I next met the senator several years later, in a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey. By then, I had been to many camps and covered several high-level meetings. In striking contrast to other high-level visitors, McCain spent most of his time actually talking with the Syrians who had been forced to flee their war-torn homeland. It was refreshing to see a politician who didnt care about photo ops and who paid more attention to the refugees themselves than to the official statement from the camp authorities.

I wasnt the only one impressed by the senators visit. One Syrian who attended the meeting with McCain told me: He was the only visiting politician to give us more than lip service.

I havent always agreed with all of McCains policies, but from the minute I met him, I have had the utmost respect for his bravery and his loyalty to what he believes in. Hes a man who has always stuck to his values even when they arent popular. While many politicians remember human rights and democracy only when its convenient, the senator has consistently championed human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

He has been one of Washingtons most consistent defenders of the late Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a man many U.S. politicians have been reluctant to praise for fear of offending China. He called for the closure of the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay when this wasnt exactly calculated to make him friends in his own party.

Even though Egypt is one of the United Statess closest military allies, he has been willing to call Egypt out on its harsh treatment of dissidents.

Full disclosure: Three years ago, I was fortunate enough to come to the United States as one of the fellows of the Next Generation Leaders program at the McCain Institute in Washington. The institute, created by McCain and his family, is a testament to the senators lifelong devotion to human rights.

Over the past five years, the institute has created a network of 44 emerging leaders from 33 countries and five continents who are committed to good governance, leadership and human rights. Every year, the institute gives human rights defenders a unique opportunity to gather in Arizona, where they speak about their fight against tyranny and their desire to make the world a better place.

By doing this, McCain hasnt just given human rights defenders a chance to make their case to people in the United States. He has also given them an opportunity to share lessons and expertise with one another, creating a worldwide community of people working for positive change. Apparently, some Americans dont know Sen. McCain as well as we do, one Ukrainian activist told me when he heard the news about the senators illness. Hell never back down from a fight because the odds arent in his favor.

McCain has been a guardian angel for many activists who have been fighting for their freedoms despite the odds. That might help Americans to understand why they arent the only ones who are now appreciating his legacy afresh. From Syria to Russia, from Burma to Ukraine, those who truly believe in freedom are praying for a speedy recovery of their true friend in the United States.

(Berivan Orucoglu is the program coordinator of the Supporting Human Rights Defenders program at the McCain Institute for International Leadership.)

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Washington Post: Why human rights defenders love John McCain - Concord Monitor

Last Sunday, a thirsty immigrants request for water at a Walmart in San Antonio led to the discovery, in the parking lot, of the deadliest truck-smuggling operation in the United States in more than a decade. Ten of the 39 people found in or near the truck died, and others were hospitalized, some with brain damage.

The case has cast a harsh light on a practice known for its cruelty. But it also showed that the big rig rolls on as a highly organized, often effective and remarkably enduring transportation option for the smuggling underworld.

Hundreds of migrants every year are caught inside tractor-trailers, and hundreds more are believed to be cruising in undetected. Even though President Trumps tough stance on illegal immigration has slowed the flow of border crossers, many are still trying to slip past the Border Patrol in the back of eighteen-wheelers.

In late June, for example, a Homeland Security task force found 21 people in the back of another tractor-trailer in Laredo, leading to the prosecution of four suspected smugglers. And the Mexican authorities reported on Saturday that they had rescued 147 Central American migrants, including 48 children, found abandoned in a wilderness area in Veracruz State after a truck carrying them crashed.

It has been going on certainly throughout the entire 30 years that Ive been doing this, said the director of the task force, Paul A. Beeson, a veteran Border Patrol agent. They use every method of conveyance that they can come up with.

Court records, news reports and interviews with officials, border experts and migrants who have survived the trip illustrated both the lure of the truck and its dangers.

In South Texas, the busiest border for illegal entry and a mostly unfenced one, crossing the Rio Grande is in many ways the easy part. The hardest is getting past the 100-mile-wide zone where Border Patrol traffic checkpoints function as a last line of defense before migrants reach San Antonio, Houston and cities beyond.

Undocumented immigrants and the people who profit off smuggling them must decide whether to go around the checkpoints on foot, or go through them in a vehicle.

Those who circumvent the checkpoints on foot often do not make it out alive, dying from dehydration or heat stroke. For decades, particularly in hot Texas summers, going through the checkpoints in the trailers of eighteen-wheelers has appealed as a far less perilous option.

Its considered V.I.P., considered safer, faster and therefore more expensive, said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an expert on border issues and a fellow at the Wilson Center, a research institute in Washington. With stronger border enforcement measures, people dont want to be visible.

Mr. Alcocers truck trip in 2002 cost $2,500. According to the criminal smuggling complaint against the driver of the San Antonio truck, James M. Bradley Jr., one of the migrants told investigators that he was to pay his smugglers $5,500 once he reached San Antonio safely.

Far more people are smuggled in cars. In the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, nearly 2,000 migrants have been caught in cars, compared with about 225 in commercial trucks, according to the Border Patrol. (In the previous fiscal year, those numbers were 3,400 and 369, respectively.)

But trucks provide several advantages over cars for smugglers and migrants.

One is bulk. One eighteen-wheeler trip is often the work not of a single smuggler but of several working together, who load four, five or six groups of 20 or so migrants into a trailer. In the San Antonio case, one immigrant believed that up to 200 people had been inside at one point. They had been handed tape with different colors so their handlers could keep track of which groups went with which smugglers at the drop-off point.

Usually if youre in those big vehicles, its trying to coordinate large groups and move people around, said Jeremy Slack, a migration expert and professor at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Another benefit is evasion. So many trucks in the Southwest are moving goods to and from Mexico that the Border Patrol cannot possibly check all of them. To minimize the risk of inspection, smugglers will try tactics like the rotting watermelons, which did not work. If a truck is refrigerated, the driver will often turn the cooling system off before reaching the checkpoint so that inspectors will not get suspicious when the driver claims the truck is empty.

Once past the checkpoints, the trucks are bound for major cities, such as Houston and San Antonio, that have become hubs for human and drug smuggling. At the drop-off points, the migrants are put into smaller vehicles for the next leg of their journey.

But the ad hoc smuggling system is fraught with delays and faulty equipment, as well as misjudgments about how long people can survive packed into often-unrefrigerated metal boxes in the Texas heat.

In one case in 2003, when 19 immigrants died in an overheated tractor-trailer near Victoria, Tex., a simple part of the plan went awry. The driver was supposed to drop off the immigrants at a town about 45 miles north of the Border Patrol checkpoint. But the smugglers who were supposed to unload the immigrants there were detained at the checkpoint, and the driver was told to instead drive to Houston, more than 200 miles from the original drop-off point. The milk trailers cooling unit was never turned on, although some migrants were told that it would be.

One of the really horrifying things back in the Victoria case was people had been told to bring sweaters, because it was going to be cold in the back of the truck, said David Spener, the author of Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico Border and a professor of sociology and anthropology at Trinity University in San Antonio.

Mr. Bradley, 60, who has been charged with one count of transporting illegal immigrants, told investigators that he had known that the trucks refrigeration system didnt work and that the vents were probably clogged, according to the criminal complaint. He said he had been unaware the immigrants were on board.

Both the San Antonio and Victoria cases involved non-Hispanic drivers from outside Texas. Smugglers, many of whom have ties to Mexican drug cartels, frequently recruit non-Hispanics with out-of-state plates because they believe those drivers are less likely to raise suspicions as they pass through traffic checkpoints.

Mr. Bradley is African-American, lived in Florida and was driving a truck with Iowa plates. The driver in the Victoria episode, Tyrone M. Williams, is a Jamaican national, lived in upstate New York and had New York plates. He is now in federal prison.

For the drivers, the risks are tremendous, but the rewards can be relatively meager. In the Victoria case, Mr. Williams made two transports of migrants in May 2003. For the first one, he drove 60 immigrants and was paid $6,500, and for the second and deadly trip, he was paid $7,500 for transporting 74 migrants.

Many of those who survive the trips remain physically scarred, and emotionally haunted. Immigrants who have been smuggled in this way have undergone monthslong hospitalizations and talk years later about having trouble concentrating and riding in vehicles.

Fifteen years after his ordeal, Mr. Alcocer said he still wakes up sweating from nightmares. As he rode in the trailer with about 45 other migrants, some hallucinated, fainted or vomited. They tried in vain to tear holes in the metal walls with a pair of barber scissors belonging to a migrant who was a hairstylist from Argentina. They were given six gallons of water, but they ran out early, so they urinated in the empty water bottles, he said.

The first time the urine-filled gallons came to me, I was disgusted, he said. I couldnt do it. But eventually I had no choice. Perhaps it saved my life.

Mr. Alcocer eventually woke up disoriented in a hospital room, where he was treated for hyperthermia. He received a visa in return for his testimony against the smugglers, two of whom were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. Mr. Alcocer is now a permanent resident and lives near Houston.

Another memory he has from the ride is that he was promised the trailer would have a cooling system. The judge in the case pointed out that as the immigrants suffered, the two smugglers in the cab had the air-conditioning on.

David Montgomery and Ron Nixon contributed reporting from San Antonio, and Caitlin Dickerson from New York. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on July 31, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: For Migrants, Peril on 18 Wheels; For Smugglers, a Profit Machine.

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Big Rigs, a Human Smuggling Mainstay, Often Become Rolling Traps - New York Times

Kelvin Benjamin (left) said being with his Panthers teammates has helped him grieve the loss of his mother.

SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- We all have tough days at work that are influenced by something tragic or sad in our personal lives. Sometimes those around us dont have a clue as to why we might have been off in our performance or short with them in conversation.

Football players are no different.

Fans sitting on the hill at Wofford College during the first week of Carolina Panthers training camp had no idea wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin lost his mother last week, not until he wrote Friday afternoon on Instagram that he was in a dark place when she was buried last weekend.

Reporters had no idea, either.

Even some of Benjamins teammates werent aware because he kept much of what he was going through to himself.

So if the 6-foot-5, 243-pound star dropped a pass or two in practice, most would write it off simply as a bad day or that he was struggling in the extreme heat and humidity.

Some might even have been critical, saying he still was a little overweight, as he was early in offseason workouts, and not considering whether it might be something else.

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Football players, particularly stars like Benjamin, are held to different standards. They are viewed as superheroes, not humans.

Former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre set the bar high in 2003 when he passed for 399 yards and four touchdowns in a prime-time Monday night victory over Oakland the day after his father passed.

It doesnt always play out that way.

We need to understand this.

It happens a lot more than people realize, Carolina coach Ron Rivera said. These guys are human beings, too. They go through ups and downs with families. Thats the thing weve all got to understand. These young men, theyre human.

Rivera went through a similar situation two years ago. On the eve of the 2015 training camp, his brother, Mickey, lost a two-year fight with pancreatic cancer.

Rivera reported to camp on time, but to his credit he took two days off to be with his family in Reno, Nevada, for the funeral.

He needed the time away.

He also needed the time with the football team during his grieving.

The tremendous support I got from this organization was unbelievable, Rivera said. For some of these young guys, a lot of them are very private, too.

Kelvin was very private about it. He didnt open up right away. Now he is. I tell you, its just been great for him. Its good to see.

Benjamin was laughing and smiling after Fridays practice as fans screamed for his autograph. He was feeling well enough about where he was mentally that he shared for the first time how being around the team has helped.

It was a heartfelt message about how he feeds off the energy of his teammates. He ended the post with, Love mom keep watching over me.

This puts a different perspective on things.

It humanizes the athlete.

Sometimes people dont know whats going on, Panthers receiver Austin Dukes said. Sometimes we dont know whats going on. ... But its a brotherhood, man. When somebody goes down or somebody loses somebody, youre there for him.

Benjamins brothers have been there for him, and hes stronger for it. Hes working hard to shed the label he got for being overweight and is focused on returning to the form he was in during the 2015 camp before he suffered a season-ending knee injury.

At some point, hell talk about what the past week or weeks has been like.

For now, hes in a good place, not a dark place.

Kelvins was really a tough situation, Rivera said. He really took it hard, but I do know this -- and he told everybody -- him being out here has been great for him.

Sometimes the best therapy is to be around your teammates.

Read more from the original source:
Kelvin Benjamin's heartfelt Instagram post shows human side of football - ESPN (blog)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Fellow humans, don't panic yet Pittsburgh Post-Gazette On the other side of the argument, however, are equally knowledgable figures, such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu, known as China's Google. They see the many ways AI will serve humans, such as by diagnosing and ...

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Fellow humans, don't panic yet - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette