https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-afghan-capital-kabul-start-collecting-weapons-civilians-2021-08-16/

KABUL, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Taliban fighters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, started collecting weapons from civilians on Monday because people no longer need them for personal protection, a Taliban official said.

"We understand people kept weapons for personal safety. They can now feel safe. We are not here to harm innocent civilians," the official told Reuters.

City resident Saad Mohseni, director of the MOBY group media company, said on Twitter that Taliban soldiers had come to his company compound to enquire about the weapons kept by his security team.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58241619

New Zealand has announced a snap lockdown after a man tested positive for Covid, the first case in six months.

The case was detected in Auckland, which will be in lockdown for a week, while the rest of the country will be in lockdown for three days.

Authorities say they are working on the assumption that the new case was the Delta variant.

Just around 20% of its population has been fully vaccinated.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/michigan/articles/2021-08-14/gun-rights-group-aims-to-give-firearm-lessons-to-4-000-women

DETROIT (AP) — A gun rights advocacy group based in Detroit is holding its annual free firearm shooting lessons for women interested in learning about guns and personal protection.

The lessons are scheduled Aug. 21-22 at target ranges in Taylor, southwest of Detroit. Pre-registration is required.

Legally Armed in Detroit founder Rick Ector said the group hopes to provide lessons to 4,000 women. The sessions will include a firearm instructor’s safety briefing, use of a firearm, ammunition and range time.

No prior firearms training or experience is required, Ector said.

The free lessons have been offered for a decade. Fifty women received training the first year and more than 1,900 women participated last year, Ector added.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/michigan/articles/2021-08-14/gun-rights-group-aims-to-give-firearm-lessons-to-4-000-women

DETROIT (AP) — A gun rights advocacy group based in Detroit is holding its annual free firearm shooting lessons for women interested in learning about guns and personal protection.

The lessons are scheduled Aug. 21-22 at target ranges in Taylor, southwest of Detroit. Pre-registration is required.

Legally Armed in Detroit founder Rick Ector said the group hopes to provide lessons to 4,000 women. The sessions will include a firearm instructor’s safety briefing, use of a firearm, ammunition and range time.

No prior firearms training or experience is required, Ector said.

The free lessons have been offered for a decade. Fifty women received training the first year and more than 1,900 women participated last year, Ector added.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/anti-mask-crowd-uncontrollable-tenn-school-board-meeting-florida-texas-schools-mask-mandates-181606106.html

A special session on mask usage held by Tennessee’s Williamson County Board of Education dissolved into chaos as doctors who spoke about the importance of masks in schools were heckled during the meeting and hounded in the parking lot afterward. Video went viral on Twitter of the scene in the parking lot, with one man threatening a driver with, “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.”

Dr. Meredith C. Duke, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who has three children in the school district, tells Yahoo Life that she tried to speak at the meeting “but didn’t get the opportunity.”

Duke says that each speaker was given a minute to talk, whether they were a parent or a medical professional. “There was a loud anti-mask crowd that was uncontrollable,” she says. “Some people got thrown out for interrupting and shouting.”

Duke says that one of the school board members would use a timer to make sure everyone had a minute to speak, but the anti-mask crowd “would start yelling and screaming, ‘Time! Time!’ when it got near the end. They even did this to one of the infectious disease specialists from Vanderbilt.”

(Excerpt)

Twitter link to video, not sure how to embed it. Ugly stuff.

https://mobile.twitter.com/natalie_allison/status/1425449438202548224

https://www.democraticunderground.com/126213876

https://m.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/shots-fired-a-reporter-visits-vermonts-first-indoor-gun-range/Content?oid=33532211

…..

While the pistol was manageable, even comfortable to hold and fire, the rifle was a different beast altogether. Everything about it — its weight, tactical scope and overall lethality — was downright intimidating.

……

When ready, I lined up the target in the cross hairs, pulled the stock onto my shoulder, squeezed the trigger and — BA-BOOM!!!!!

……


It is difficult to describe the impact — physical and personal — of that first shot. It felt like a meteor had struck the earth in front of me. A deep shock wave coursed through my body, the recoil rippling through my arms and right shoulder with astounding power. Being that close to an explosion of such magnitude — controlled and focused as it was — rattled me.


(Excerpt)

Rather breathless prose for a description of pulling the trigger on a firearm considered insufficiently powerful to legally hunt a deer in most jurisdictions.

https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/06/japan-marks-76th-anniversary-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-nuclear-bombings

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga attended a memorial commemorating the 76th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Survivors and relatives marked the blast anniversary with a minute of silence; many who survived the attacks continue to require welfare and medical care.

August 6, 1945

The United States dropped the world's first nuclear bomb used against civilians at 08:15 local time in the southwestern city of Hiroshima.

The bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" destroyed the city and immediately killed 80,000 civilians, which represented around 30% of the population at the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/03/woman-killed-attack-black-bear-remote-alberta-forest


Police in Canada say a 26-year-old woman working as a helicopter engineer in Alberta was killed by a black bear on Saturday, in a rare attack by one of the country’s largest predators.

The woman was mauled by what witnesses believe was an adult black bear in a remote area of north-west Alberta, said police. A co-worker who witnessed the attack helped scare off the bear before calling for help.

“She was evacuated by her co-worker on a helicopter and brought back to the Swan Hills airport where they met up with an ambulance, emergency crews, and she was subsequently declared deceased at the airport,” RCMP spokesperson Cpl Troy Savinkoff told the Canadian Press. The victim’s family has asked that she not be identified.

Tree planters hired by private companies to re-forest swaths of the taiga after logging operations are often sent to work in remote, rugged terrain.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/05/tech/who-wants-to-be-an-astronaut-space-hero-reality-television-scn/index.html

(CNN)The hottest new reality show isn't set in a house, on an obstacle course, or on the Jersey Shore. Television producers are betting on a new location: the International Space Station.

Two reality television shows are in the works that would offer a first for viewers by taking them inside the ISS, as a member of the public will be awarded a multi-million dollar experience to space as the grand prize on both. The Discovery Channel is considering "Who Wants to Be an Astronaut" while a competitor, "Space Hero," is hoping to land somewhere else.

The "Who Wants to Be An Astronaut" premise is simple and relies on traditional reality television tropes. Here on Earth, contestants will vie for an all-expenses-paid trip to live on the ISS for eight days. The as-yet unknown "variety of extreme challenges" are designed to determine which competitors have what it takes to be a real astronaut, and passage to space will be provided by Houston-based space broker Axiom Space. While NASA hasn't confirmed that Axiom Space will even be able to secure a seat on a commercial rocket, Discovery is confident in its plans. The media company has even enlisted former astronaut Mike Massimino's consulting services.

Unlike most astronauts, Massimino is no stranger to filming for entertainment purposes in space. While on a mission to repair the Hubble Telescope in 2009, he personally shot footage on the ISS for the Hubble documentary, using IMAX cameras to give viewers a close-up and realistic look at what goes into the process of repairing the telescope. "A lot of our training is what we call Photo TV training," the astronaut said. "And that's just to share the experience with the rest of the world to get documentation of the planet."