The shipping agent for an Iranian supertanker caught in a diplomatic standoff says the vessel is ready to depart Gibraltar on Sunday or Monday, as the U.S. made a last-minute effort to seize it again.

The head of the company sorting paperwork and procuring for the Grace 1 oil tanker in the British overseas territory said the vessel could be sailing away in the next “24 to 48 hours,” once new crews dispatched to the territory take over command of the ship.

“The vessel is ongoing some logistical changes and requirements that have delayed the departure,” Astralship managing director Richard De la Rosa told The Associated Press.

De la Rosa’s comments came a day after the U.S. obtained a warrant to seize the vessel over violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. It was unclear if that could happen within a 24-hour time frame as Gibraltar officials have said any request to seize the vessel would have to make its way through the territory’s courts.

He said the new crews were Indian and Ukrainian nationals hired by the Indian managers of the ship and that his company had not been informed about the supertanker’s next destination.

Iranian Oil Tanker Freed by Gibraltar Despite US Appeal

British overseas territory of Gibraltar releases Iranian supertanker Grace 1 from detention after receiving assurances from Tehran that it would not send its crude oil cargo to Syria

The tanker, which carries 2.1 million barrels of Iranian light crude oil, had been detained for over a month in Gibraltar for allegedly attempting to breach European Union sanctions on Syria. The arrest fueled tension between London and Tehran, which seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz in apparent retaliation.

Analysts had said the release of the Grace 1 by Gibraltar could see Britain’s Stena Impero go free.

But late on Friday, a day after the tanker was released from detention, the U.S. obtained a warrant to seize the vessel over violations of U.S. sanctions, money laundering and terrorism statutes. Washington is seeking to take control of the oil tanker, all of the petroleum aboard and $995,000, unsealed court documents showed.

The latest turn of events come as tensions continue to rise in the Persian Gulf since President Donald Trump last year unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal signed by Iran and other world powers. In recent weeks, oil tankers in the region have been the subject of attacks and seizures, dragging among others London and Tehran into a bitter diplomatic row.

The Gibraltar Supreme Court didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the U.S. request had been filed there. Britain’s Foreign Office deferred questions to the government of Gibraltar, but calls and emails to its offices on how authorities planned to respond to Washington’s move went unanswered.

Messages left with the U.S. Embassy in London were not immediately returned.

The chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, had warned the U.S. that a new legal case would need to be examined by the territory’s courts following the end of the tanker’s detention this week. Picardo said he had been assured in writing by the Iranian government that the tanker wouldn’t unload its cargo in Syria.

Richard Wilkinson, a lawyer representing three crew members of the Grace 1 oil tanker, including its Indian captain, said he was “not aware of any reason why the ship won’t sail on Sunday, as it is to be planned.”

“As far as Europe is concerned, and it’s common ground, there’s been no criticism or complaints that this vessel is carrying oil from Iran, the only problem from the European point of view was the destination of the vessel and that has been sorted,” Wilkinson said.

He also said that he doubted that the U.S. had any jurisdiction to enforce its own sanctions in Gibraltar, where he saw “little political will” to re-seize the tanker.

The time window for a new seizure was also rapidly closing, as workers were seen by an AP crew hanging on a ladder to repaint the vessel’s bow with the name “Adrian Darya 1” over the place where “Grace 1″ had already been blackened out.

The ship was reportedly no longer sailing under a Panamanian flag, but no signs of a new one could be seen on Saturday.

The shipping agent, De la Rosa, said that “if the Americans came forth with some kind of request or specific order, it would have to be looked into by the judges, but I don’t think that’s materialized.”

Sanam Vakil, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, said the Iran policies of the U.K. and the U.S. governments overlapped in some aspects but differed on the 2015 nuclear deal, which London wants to maintain despite the Trump administration’s efforts to scrap it.

The British, Vakil said, “think it’s de-escalation that’s going to result in the release of the Stena Impero and preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” as the nuclear deal is officially known.

“The Americans are trying to provoke Iran,” she added. “If they do manage to seize the ship, it’s all about provoking the Islamic Republic. They’re trying to create a new cycle of tensions.”

…

For the first time in more than a decade, Native Americans have the opportunity to question presidential candidates on issues of importance to Indian Country.

“This is our chance to tell candidates that they can earn our votes,” said organizer O.J. Semans, co-executive director of the national Native American voting rights organization Four Directions.

Nine presidential hopefuls, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development Julian Castro, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Montana Gov., Democrat Steve Bullock, Navajo pastor Mark Charles and author Marianne Williamson say they will participate in the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum.

The two-day event opens Monday in Sioux City, Iowa. Organizers say invitations were extended to candidates from all major political parties, although so far only these nine candidates hoping to unseat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election have confirmed their attendance. The organizers also say talks are continuing with several other campaigns.

Mark Trahant, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and editor of Indian Country Today, will moderate a series of panels, giving tribal leaders and Native American youth a chance to air concerns and ask candidates questions on matters of particular importance to Native voters. 

‘We are here’

Semans expressed delight that many major news organizations will be covering the event.

“For two days, all of the United States is going to know we’re here,” Semans said. “We didn’t get wiped out, we are not extinct, and we have a political voice in which issues that until now have been set on the back burner are now going to be able to be discussed.”

Of the hundreds of issues of importance to Native American voters, panelists will focus on two in particular, said Semans:

The Remove the Stain Act, which Washington Rep. Denny Heck introduced in the House in June as H.R. 3467. If enacted, the bill would rescind the 20 Medals of Honor awarded to members of the 7th Cavalry who on December 29, 1890, murdered nearly 150 Lakota in the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Medal of Honor is America’s highest military honor, given out to members of the armed services who demonstrate outstanding bravery and valor.

“Our second priority issue for the forum is missing and murdered indigenous women and children,” said Semans. “Women and children are sacred to our societies, and in order for us to maintain our societies and cultures, we must do what we were taught, which is to protect women and children, who we are losing in outrageous numbers.”

According to the U.S. Justice Department, Native women are 10 times as likely to be murdered as the national average, falling victim to domestic or drug-related violence, sexual assault or sex trafficking.

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center has called on lawmakers to expand tribal jurisdiction over cases of missing and murdered women and children; allocate more resources for victim services; improve data collection and expand tribal access to federal criminal databases, among other measures.

“Actually, underfunding is the fundamental to all these issues,” said Semans. “We wouldn’t have to be discussing funding for our transportation or infrastructure, we wouldn’t have to have discussions on housing and health care and law enforcement if the federal government fully honored the treaties.”

In a related development, Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced Friday she will work with New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) on legislative proposals addressing chronic federal underfunding of tribes, as well as barriers to tribal sovereignty.

The federal government has a responsibility to write a new chapter in the story of its government-to-government relationship with tribal nations. Read my and @SenWarren‘s OP-ED in @IndianCountry: https://t.co/6dmxGrzswm

— Rep. Deb Haaland (@RepDebHaaland) August 16, 2019

The last time Native Americans had a chance to speak directly to presidential candidates was in August 2007 at the “Prez on the Rez” forum on the Morongo Reservation in California. Only three candidates, all Democrats for the 2008 race, participated. Then-New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel took part.

This week’s forum is named for civil rights leader Frank LaMere, a citizen of the Winnebago tribe in Nebraska. He died in June.

Co-sponsors include the Native Organizers Alliance, the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund.

…

Italy’s hard-line interior minister appeared to buckle under pressure Saturday to ease the political standoff over a migrant rescue ship with 134 people aboard, saying he would allow minors to disembark after being at sea for two weeks.

Premier Giuseppe Conte had written a second letter to Interior Minister Matteo Salvini demanding that minors be allowed off the boat. Salvini wrote back Saturday with a three-page missive of his own saying he would do so but made clear it was Conte’s choice and that it didn’t set a precedent.

It wasn’t clear how many youngsters were aboard, or when the disembarkation might begin.

The standoff laid bare the split between Salvini’s anti-migrant League and the 5-Star Movement, which together govern Italy. Salvini is seeking to end Conte’s populist coalition with a no-confidence vote and early election that Salvini hopes will give him the premiership.

Spanish aid group Open Arms had rescued the migrants in the Mediterranean near Libya two weeks ago, and won a legal battle to enter Italy’s territorial waters despite a ban by Salvini preventing humanitarian aid groups from docking.

The ship has been off Italy’s coast waiting to disembark after Spain and five other European Union nations agreed to take them in.

Open Arms chief Oscar Camps warned Saturday that the group couldn’t guarantee the safety of the migrants anymore, as tensions were rising and fights breaking out.

He warned European leaders that as of Saturday “we cannot be responsible nor guarantee the security of the people on board Open Arms.”

Amid the standoff, the aid group filed a formal complaint with prosecutors in Sicily alleging that both the migrants and the crew were being held hostage. Salvini and other ministers have been investigated in the past for alleged kidnapping stemming from previous standoffs, but no charges have ever been brought.

…

HASLET, TEXAS — Acrid gun smoke clouded the sunny entrance of a Texas church on a recent Sunday.

Seven men wearing heavy vests and carrying pistols loaded with blanks ran toward the sound of the shots, stopping at the end of a long hallway. As one peeked into the foyer, the “bad guy” raised the muzzle of an AR-15, took aim and squeezed the trigger.

The simulated gunfight at the church in Haslet was part of a niche industry that trains civilians to protect their churches using the techniques and equipment of law enforcement. Rather than a bullet, the rifle fired a laser that hit Stephen Hatherley’s vest, triggering an electric shock the 60-year-old Navy veteran later described as a “tingle.”

Shootings this month killed more than 30 people at an El Paso Walmart and Dayton, Ohio, entertainment district. But gunmen have also targeted houses of worships in recent years, including a church in rural Sutherland Springs, Texas, where more than two dozen people were killed in 2017. 

Welcome strangers, safely

The anxiety of one mass shooting after another has led some churches to start training and arming their worshippers with guns. Not all security experts support this approach, but it has gained momentum as congregations across the country grapple with how to secure spaces where welcoming strangers is a religious practice.

“Ten years ago, this industry was not a thing,” said David Riggall, a Texas police officer whose company trains churchgoers to volunteer as security guards. “I mean, sanctuary means a safe place.”

In 1993, Doug Walker said security wasn’t at the fore of his mind when, as a recent Baptist seminary graduate, he founded Fellowship of the Parks church in Fort Worth. But six years later, after a gunman killed seven people and took his own life at another church in the Texas city, the pastor said his thinking changed.

Today, the interdenominational church has four campuses and 3,000 worshippers on an average Sunday, Walker said. It has increased security as it has grown, asking off-duty police to carry weapons at church events. And it recently hired Riggall’s company, Sheepdog Defense Group, to train volunteers in first aid, threat assessment, de-escalation techniques, using a gun and tactical skills, such as clearing rooms during an active shooting.

Walker, 51, said there wasn’t a single event that prompted his church to decide its guards needed more training. But Riggall said that after mass shootings congregations reach out.

“Every time the news comes on and there’s another shooting in a school or church or something like that, the phone starts ringing,” Riggall said.

The 46-year-old police officer said that he and a colleague had the idea for the company after the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. They started doing firearms trainings with parents and, after Riggall became certified under Texas law to train security guards, transitioned to churches.

‘I’m going to kill this woman’

The company incorporates Christian teachings into its courses and more than 90 people at 18 churches have completed the 70 hours of initial training and become state-licensed guards through its program, Riggall said. The so-called sheepdogs are insured and technically employed by the company. But they volunteer doing security at their own churches, which in turn pay Riggall.

On a Sunday in July, Brett Faulkner stood with an AR-15 in hand and his back to the cross in the sanctuary of Fellowship of the Parks campus in Haslet, a community about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Fort Worth. He pointed the rifle at a young woman’s back and yelled at the armed men advancing into the room, “I’m going to kill this woman. It’s going to happen right now.”

Faulkner, a 46-year-old information technology worker, has completed a Sheepdog session but came to another church’s to play the bad guy and keep his skills sharp.

“It really just comes down to caring about the people in that building,” Faulkner said of choosing to guard his small Baptist church.

Faulkner said his congregation re-evaluated its security after recent mass shootings and went with Riggall’s company as a cost-effective option. 

“This is a good balance between the cost of paying professionals and relying on untrained volunteers,” he said.

Finding balance

Security professionals differ on what balance is right.

After 11 worshippers were shot dead during Shabbat morning services at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the city’s Jewish community has added layers of defenses.

Since that October attack, congregations that once felt guns were unnecessary or inappropriate have welcomed armed security, said Brad Orsini, security director for The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. But arming worshippers is not an approach the former FBI agent recommends.

“Carrying a firearm is an awesome responsibility,” said Orsini, who served in the Marine Corps before his nearly three decades with the FBI. “Because you have the ability to have a carry concealed permit does not make you a security expert. Because you have a firearm doesn’t necessarily mean you should be carrying it at the church on the weekend.”

Security on a budget

Sheepdog Firearms, a Birmingham, Alabama-area gun range, offers police-style training to people looking to protect their churches. Owner David Youngstrom acknowledged the eight-hour course doesn’t produce experts.

But, he said, many of the roughly 40 Alabama churches that have sent people to take the class are small, rural congregations with limited means. For them, having armed volunteers can feel like the only option, he said.

And the trainings provide churches with evidence of having a security program in place if a tragedy turns into litigation. 

“It gives a good record for something that will hold up in court,” Youngstrom said.

Laws about carrying firearms in houses of worship vary from state to state. But as a general matter of liability, churches training members for security is not much different from a business hiring guards, according to Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law.

A church could be sued if people were harmed because its security was badly trained, Volokh said, but also if it generally failed to protect people on its grounds. Both can be insured against and either is unlikely, he said.

Different churches, different approaches

Brian Higgins, a former police chief for Bergen County, New Jersey, and instructor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said he’s seen varied approaches to firearms in his work consulting at houses of worship. Attitudes toward guns differ between urban and rural areas, as do the security needs, he said.

And churches comfortable arming members also draw lines to preserve an environment conducive to worship.

Fellowship of the Parks allows congregants to have concealed weapons in church. But Walker, the pastor, said that other than security, people carrying openly are asked to put their guns away or leave.

“If people open carry who are not uniformed that can be very unsettling,” Walker said. “You may not know if that person is a possible shooter or criminal, so we try to balance it.”

…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test-firing of a new weapon again on Friday morning, state media KCNA said on Saturday.

North Korea launched at least two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday, South Korea’s military said, its sixth roundof weapons launches since late July, complicating efforts to restart talks between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea will travel to Japan and South Korea next week to coordinate efforts to secure the denuclearization of North Korea, the State Department said on Friday.

News of Biegun’s trip came after U.S. President Donald Trump said last Saturday that Kim had told him he was ready to resume stalled denuclearization talks with the United States and would stop recent missile testing as soon as U.S.-South Korea military exercises that have been held this month end.

The North has protested against joint U.S.-South Korea military drills, which kicked off last week, calling them a rehearsal for war.

An official at Seoul’s defense ministry said on Friday that there was a possibility that the North fired the same type of missiles it used on Aug. 10, which Pyongyang also called “a new weapon” at that time.

Last week, Trump played down the North’s recent missile tests, saying they do not violate Kim’s pledge to forego nuclear and long-range tests. Trump also said that he had just received a “very beautiful letter’ from Kim and added that he could have another meeting with him.

The denuclearization talks have been in a stalemate since a June 30 meeting between the two leaders.

…

This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between The Associated Press and the PBS series Frontline on the treatment of migrant children.

WASHINGTON — Dozens of families separated at the border as part of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy are preparing to sue the federal government, including several who say their young children were sexually, physically or emotionally abused in federally funded foster care.  
  
A review of 38 legal claims obtained by The Associated Press — some of which have never been made public — shows taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $200 million in damages. More than 3,000 migrant children were taken from their parents at the border in recent years and many more lawsuits are expected, potentially totaling in the billions.  
  
The families — some in the U.S., others already deported to Central America — are represented by grass-roots immigration clinics and nonprofit groups, along with some of the country’s most powerful law firms. They’re making claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act as a precursor to filing lawsuits. The FTCA allows individuals who suffer harm as a direct result of federal employees to sue the government.  
  
“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said Erik Walsh, an attorney at Arnold & Porter, which has one of the world’s leading pro bono programs.  

18 claims so far by firm
  
The firm has so far filed 18 claims on behalf of nine families, totaling $54 million, and Walsh says dozens more are likely.   
  
The government has six months to settle FTCA claims from the time they’re filed. After that, the claimants are free to file federal lawsuits. 
 
The departments of Justice and Homeland Security, both named in the claims, did not respond to requests for comment.  
  

Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for the care of migrant children, said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation, but that it treats children with dignity and respect.   
  
Last year, HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement cared for nearly 50,000 children who crossed the border by themselves, as well as children who were separated from their families under the zero-tolerance policy.  
  
The agency housed them in foster programs, residential shelters and detention camps around the country, sometimes making daily placements of as many as 500 new arrivals, from babies to teens. 
 
The allegations of abuse and assaults in foster care raise fresh questions about the government’s efforts to place younger children with families in lieu of larger shelters and packed detention facilities.  

Emotional, physical harm
  
The legal claims, a recent federal court filing and HHS documents released by Congress earlier this year allege that children have suffered serious emotional trauma after being physically harmed or fondled by other children while in foster care.  
  
Six of the claims for damages involve children who were in foster care. And one recent court filing refers to a migrant child being abused in foster care.  
  
The records released by Congress show the Office of Refugee Resettlement referred at least seven foster care allegations of sexual abuse to the Justice Department in 2017 and 2018. Because some are anonymous to protect the children’s privacy, it’s unclear if some of the claims are duplicates.  
  
Justice has not responded to repeated queries about those cases from members of Congress.   
  
Three of the four incidents involving physical harm outlined in the FTCA claims occurred at Cayuga Centers in New York, the largest foster care placement for migrant children, housing up to 900 babies and children at a time.  
  
Cayuga Centers did not respond to requests for comment.  
  
One Guatemalan mother whose 5-year-old daughter was placed in Cayuga last year says her little girl still wakes up crying from what she endured at the foster home.  
  
“Now she’s scared each time we go out or when she sees a police car or someone in uniform,” said the mother, who has filed a $6 million claim. “She says `Mami, don’t let them separate us again.’ ”  
  
Families who spoke to the AP and Frontline did so on the condition of anonymity over fears about their safety.  

New York program
  
Another 5-year-old Guatemalan girl said a boy grabbed her chest and touched her inappropriately, both in her foster home and during daytime classes at a Safe Haven for Children New York foster program, according to a $3 million injury claim. The girl was moved to a new foster home but suffered verbal abuse from her foster parent’s mother, who called her names and locked her alone in rooms as punishment, according to the claim.   
  

A spokesman for Lutheran Social Services of New York, which oversees the Safe Haven foster program, declined to comment. 
 
Two claims blame the government for wrongful deaths: one, seeking $20 million, was filed by the wife of a Honduran father who killed himself in a padded cell after officers pulled his 3-year-old son from his arms.  
  
“The people making these policies intended this level of suffering, and that’s what’s unconscionable,” said John Escamilla, who is representing the man’s wife and two children.  
  
He said he planned to file a federal lawsuit stemming from his FTCA claim soon. 

The government has not settled any family separation cases in the administrative claims stage. But one federal lawsuit is currently in litigation in Massachusetts, and in February, a judge approved a $125,000 settlement for a Honduran mom and her son, then 6, who had been detained for four months and threatened with separation under the Obama administration.   
  
Aseem Mehta, a law student at the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School who worked on the case, said the settlement, the first of its kind, sends a clear message that such claims have legal standing.  

‘These claims are viable’
  
“Our case is a benchmark,” Mehta said. “The most important takeaway is these claims are viable, and courts will entertain them, and the Department of Homeland Security views them as meritorious; they don’t settle cases unless they think there’s liability they’re exposed to.”  
  
Janet Napolitano, who led Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, said she recalled a number of tort claims were filed against the agency in her time but said family separations were rare. The Trump administration’s failure to swiftly reunify families and children may have left the agency open to lawsuits, she added.  
  
“There very well may be some vulnerability there,” said Napolitano, now the president of the University of California. 

…

Two of President Donald Trump’s strongest allies in Congress pushed back Friday on his administration’s plans to slash some $4 billion in foreign aid that lawmakers have already approved.

In a letter, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky discouraged the president “in the strongest possible terms” from going ahead with the cuts to the State Department and United States Agency for International Development budget. The as-yet unsubmitted proposal is widely opposed by other Republicans and Democrats, but Graham and Rogers carry significant weight with the White House.

Graham is a frequent golfing partner of Trump’s and is chairman of the powerful Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department and USAID funding. Rogers is the top Republican on the corresponding subcommittee in the House. The top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees have also told the administration they oppose the cuts that are being planned under a procedure known as “rescission” and will take action to prevent them.

“We strongly urge you to reconsider this approach,” Graham and Rogers wrote. They said a cut to congressionally approved funding without serious consultation “only undermines our national security interests and emboldens our adversaries.”

The administration hasn’t yet formally announced that it will seek the cut, but the Office of Management and Budget, which last year unsuccessfully tried a similar move, has signaled it will try to return to the Treasury roughly $4 billion in unspent money appropriated for United Nations peacekeeping, development assistance, global health programs and military training.

Since taking office in 2017, the Trump administration has sought each year to slash foreign affairs funding by as much as 30% in budget proposals that have been soundly rejected by lawmakers from both parties in Congress.

…

Tracking eye movement can reveal when a person recognizes another, even when they try to hide it, according to new research.

Attempts to conceal recognition made it easier to spot in the new study, which could be used in criminal investigations to gain information from uncooperative witnesses or suspects.

Lie-detector tests are used in such cases as criminal investigations and U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation interviews, but the results are notoriously unreliable. When asked questions critical to a criminal case, a racing heartbeat or sweaty palms might incriminate a nervous truth-teller, while a practiced liar may be able to control those signs and avoid suspicion.

A team led by Ailsa Millen, a psychology researcher at Britain’s University of Stirling, tested a different method to extract information: tracking the movement of people’s eyes as they look at photographs of faces. Instead of detecting the physical response to lying, which can be misleading, the researchers looked for the hidden information itself: the knowledge of a familiar face.

“Humans are experts at familiar face recognition. Recognition of a familiar face is fast and reflexive,” said Millen. 

Your eyes trace a familiar face differently than they do an unfamiliar one. When people look at unfamiliar faces, their eyes tend to dance from feature to feature, pausing frequently but briefly as they try to identify the unknown person. When gazing at familiar faces, people tend to linger on just a few features.

Seeking hidden recognition

The researchers wanted to know if people could control their eye movements when attempting to hide the fact that they recognized a familiar face — or if their eyes would give them away.

They showed 48 students pictures of strangers and familiar professors. They asked participants to try to appear honest while lying about recognizing familiar faces.

The researchers gave half the participants a method they thought might help them hide their recognition: pausing in the same places as they looked at each face, starting from the forehead, then stopping at each eye as they move from one ear to the other, then down to the nose, mouth and chin.

Millen was surprised by how quickly the subjects reacted to both familiar and unfamiliar faces — glancing at just a few features before responding that they did or did not know the person — but the speed at which they reacted didn’t prevent the researchers from detecting their recognition of the familiar faces.

“Concealing markers for facial recognition in eye movements is difficult, especially if you know that person well,” said Millen. “The harder our participants tried to conceal recognition, the more apparent it was.”

In most cases, the participants who were given a hint as to how to hide their knowledge of the familiar person were unable to do so. Like those who were instructed to do their best to seem honest without other instructions, lingering too long on familiar facial features was a giveaway.

A better way to collect information

Millen hopes that her findings can someday be used in a law enforcement setting — not to assign guilt, but to collect information and filter out who is connected to whom in a criminal case.

“I think the work is pretty novel,” said Deborah Hannula, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who was not involved in the research. “It’s incredibly important to detect whether someone knows something and isn’t willing to reveal that in cases that have high importance, like terrorist investigations.”

Hannula and Millen agree that while the technique is promising, it needs a stronger experimental base before it can be used in a law enforcement setting.

Millen noted that she and her collaborator explored only one method of hiding recognition, but many other methods could exist, some of which might be more effective. Additionally, it’s not yet clear what role the degree of familiarity plays. In order for the method to be applied to law enforcement scenarios, it needs to be effective for faces that are very familiar as well as only slightly familiar.

The research was published in the scientific journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.

…

Scary folk tales and urban legends have always captivated people’s imaginations, especially those of the young. Now, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” a collection of short stories for children by author Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell has been adapted by Oscar-winning producer Guillermo Del Toro and director André Øvredal. During its opening weekend, the movie grossed more than $20 million, proving again that teen horror flicks are a lucrative genre. Penelope Poulou has more.

…

Women were an integral part of protests that led to the ouster of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and in demonstrations after his downfall. But many leaders now say they feel they have been locked out of political agreements and do not expect to be named to any positions in the regional council. In Khartoum, Esha Sarai and Naba Mohiedeen speak with female politicians and feminists who are pushing for more representation.
 

…

The Trump administration is under renewed fire from environmentalists following its move earlier this week to weaken the Endangered Species Act. At the same time, more than two dozen states and cities as well as a coalition of health and environmental groups are suing the administration over its rollback of the Clean Power Plan, one of President Barack Obama’s signature regulations to reduce the nation’s carbon emissions. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has more.

…

With the Philadelphia shooting suspect behind bars, U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday engaged in a blame game with city authorities. The president said the suspect, who has a criminal record, should not have been on the street. A U.S. attorney appointed by Trump blamed Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for the shooting that left six officers wounded. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, the incident has helped put pressure on the administration to tackle long-avoided gun legislature.
 

…