At least 130 African refugees have died and 200 are still missing after an overloaded boat caught fire and sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. More than 150 of the migrants have been rescued. Most of those on board were from Eritrea and Somalia, said the UN.
Italy boat sinking: Hundreds feared dead off Lampedusa
Sadly, this is only the latest such tragedy. In April of 2011 we posted about another overloaded boat bound for Lampedusa which sank with the loss of at least 130 dead and 250 missing. Lampedusa is an Italian island in the Mediterranean between Sicily and North Africa. It has become a major transit point for immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia wanting to enter Europe. Overloaded boats bound for Lampedusa have been sinking with significant loss of life for years. Time magazine describes Lampedusa as “the Italian Island Thousands Are Dying to Reach.”
This is the tale of two very different men, from different places and different times. The first was a Welshman named John Roberts, though he took the name Bartholomew when he began his wildly successful but extremely short career as a pirate in 1719. Within three years of turning pirate, 
Over the weekend, a huge swarm of moon jellyfish shut down the 1,400 megawatt Unit 3 reactor at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant on Sweden’s Baltic Sea coast. The jellyfish clogged the cooling water intakes, located roughly 60′ feet below the surface of the sea. They have since been cleared away and engineers are preparing to restart the reactor, but there is no guarantee the jellyfish will not return. “We hope we have solved the problem regarding the jellyfish, but we are not sure because they can come back,” Anders Osterberg, a spokesman for the operator, Oskarshamns Kraftgrupp AB, said Tuesday.
Back in 2010, we posted
We recently posted about a serious molasses spill in Honolulu harbor which has killed 26,000 fish and may have longer term consequences for the harbor ecology. Rick Austin was kind enough to forward an article about a far larger and more deadly molasses spill, the 
Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s inflatable sculpture, 
What is worse than an oil spill? A molasses spill, apparently. There are ways to clean up after an oil spill, whereas no one knows how clean up spilled molasses. Earlier this month, a 
The comeback by Oracle Team USA has been nothing short of amazing. Oracle appeared to be facing certain defeat, with only one more win needed by Emirates Team New Zealand to clinch the Cup. Nevertheless, Oracle came back with eight wins, completely shutting out the Kiwis in hard fought match-races. An incredible performance. The America’s Cup is staying in America.