Call to arms

December 02, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

British and German lawmakers are debating military intervention in Syria in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

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Mechanical problems and human confusion both contributed to Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501's crash into the Java Sea last December, which killed all 162 passengers and crew, investigators reported on Tuesday. Air accidents often develop from a complex series of events rather than clear-cut causes and subsequent investigations are less about affixing blame than about learning from past mistakes and preventing them from reoccurring. Indonesia AirAsia said it has modified pilot training and safety standards since the crash.

Sixty years have passed since the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a protest for racial equality that has rippled through the decades until now. On Dec. 1, 1955, seamstress and activist Rosa Parks used a bus ride in Montgomery, Ala., to spark interest in a struggle for civil rights that spanned her life. Protests began four days later. For the bus riders of Montgomery, who are more predominantly black now than during Parks's now-famous ride, the continuation of her struggle is literal. The bus system has barely survived recent decades, and buses can be inconvenient, slow, or sometimes never arrive.

Japanese authorities are investigating nearly a dozen wooden boats carrying bodies found drifting off the northwestern coast over the past month. Coast Guard officials said Tuesday they have found at least 11 shoddy boats carrying the bodies of unknown nationality since late October. They have also found fishing equipment and nets on board and signs written in Korean, suggesting they came from North Korea. This year, officials have found 34 mystery boats so far, including the 11 found between late October and November. Last year, Japan found 65 of them, and 80 more in 2013, according to the Coast Guard.

Monsanto Company, one of the world's most powerful, and controversial, multinational corporations, announced Tuesday that it plans to become carbon-neutral by 2021, reducing its own net emissions while helping client farmers do the same. In order to meet its goal, Monsanto will commit to "good housekeeping" to keep the company's own operating emissions down, Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant said, but it will also channel its bioresearch into producing "smarter" seeds and developing greener techniques that let the soil hold on to more greenhouse gases, instead of releasing them back into the atmosphere, such as increasing cover crops.

More than 9,000 miles of ocean lie between San Diego and Australia's National Centre of Excellence in Desalination. But the California city of 1.3 million, entering the state's fifth year of drought, will soon have something in common with western Australia: a desalination plant, scheduled to open December 14. Centre Director Neil Palmer applauded the city's decision to build a 50 million gallon-per-day plant to provide fresh water at a time when the groundwater supply is dwindling. During its own "Big Dry" from 1997 to 2009, when rain levels hit record lows in Australia, the country invested roughly $11 billion in desalination. It's one of many ways water experts say California can learn from water innovations the Land Down Under adopted during its drought, from using 'greywater' from dish water to left over water from laundry machines to sustain lawns to the cost-saving trick of treating and recycling wastewater.

The newest Smithsonian initiative highlights the accomplishments of everyday Americans, not in art or science or even at war, but in helping others. In doing so, the National Museum of American History places volunteer work alongside the nation's achievements in science and sacrifices on the world stage and says that a spirit of giving is part of the American character. Fittingly enough, the initiative, which began on Giving Tuesday, is funded by gifts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and from philanthropist David M. Rubenstein.

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