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Japanese Researchers Teaching Robots to Repair Themselves

Whether for maintenance or augmentation, robots that can use tools on themselves are more independent and capable




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Merger windfall for Waislitz

Billionaire Alex Waislitz stands to make millions after two financial services companies agreed to merge.




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Fairfax-APN fears outlined

New Zealand’s competition watchdog has cited areas of overlap from a Fairfax-APN merger.




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Chinese airlines eye Qantas

It could be a matter of time before a Chinese airline tries to buy a strategic stake in Qantas.




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Peekaboo!: Home Air Vent Dragons With Light-Up Eyes

These are the vent dragons made and sold by artist David Lee Pancake. The dragons are available in a variety of dragony colors, cost $200 apiece, and are made to be hung on the wall, NOT cover an actual air vent. "But--" Hey, if you want to be hot all summer because the A/C isn't blowing in the living room, that's up to you.

Vent Dragons comes with a little remote control to light up the eyes of the two little monsters and surprise your guests and friends. The lights are powered by 3 AA batteries and should burn for 150 hours before you need to replace them. To replace the batteries unscrew the grate and lift off, the batteries are in a small pack inside. The lighted eyes have 8 different settings from fast blinking to continually glowing and there is a timer to turn them off in 6 hours. Enjoy! Size: 12x7 inches. Do NOT install in an actual heating/AC vent.
Gosh, just think how much you could save on home heating and cooling costs if you had ACTUAL fire and ice breathing dragons living in your air vents. I mean granted they'd have to be trained, but I have seen all those movies. Keep going for a few more shots of some of the different colors.



  • a/c
  • aircon! i need aircon! (that was supposed to be ed from 90 day fiance: before the 90 days)
  • baby dragons
  • dang i wish i had $200 to spend on vent dragons
  • dragons
  • heating and cooling
  • light effects
  • sure why not
  • that's cool i'm into that

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The Circle Of Life: Praying Mantis Eating The Brain (And Rest) Of A 'Murder Hornet'

Because we don't have enough on our plates as it is, now we've got 'murder hornets' flying around the United States. Murder hornets (actually Asian Giant Hornets, but that name didn't strike enough fear into the masses) have a sting powerful enough that China recommends medical treatment if stunk more than ten times, and emergency treatment if stung more than 30. *pours out a little liquor for Macaulay Culkin in My Girl*. And where is his glasses?! He can't see without his glasses! Put his glasses on! Here's a video of Coyote Peterson getting stung by one (the Japanese Giant Hornet was previously believed to be a subspecies of the Asian Giant Hornet, but has since been recategorized as a color morph). This is a video of a praying mantis eating a Giant Asian hornet until it's just a pile of limbs. So yeah, praying mantises -- start breeding them. And make sure to selectively breed them too so we can produce them bigger and bigger until they're preying on us because the way things are going how is that not how this ends? Keep going for the video while I surround my Animal Crossings town with preying mantises to protect my villagers and keep my five-star rating (okay, three).




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Burning The Poplar Fluff Blanket Off Park Grass In Spain

This is a video from the Parque del Cidacos in Calahorra, La Rioja, Spain of a controlled burn of the poplar fluff (the very fine, kinda dandelion-like seeds released by female poplar trees) atop the grass in the park. As you can see, the fluff burns incredibly quickly, leaving the grass below unharmed. The time I spelled my girlfriend's name in gasoline in her parent's yard and set it ablaze? Thank God their homeowner's insurance covered detached garages! Keep going for the full video.



  • burninate
  • burning things
  • grass
  • park
  • seeds
  • so that's what that looks like
  • somebody call trogdor
  • the great outdoors
  • trees
  • trogdor is into this
  • was somebody paid to do this because i would totally do it for free and who knows things might not even get too out of hand
  • you know how i feel about fire

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I'll Take The Stairs: Elevator Starts Ascending Before Man Is Fully Inside

This is a terrifying elevator cam gif from Korea of an elevator that begins ascending before a man enters, tripping him and almost creating a classic horror movie death scene in real life. Thankfully he was able to escape. And this is exactly why I don't take elevators -- or escalators. "So you're a stair guy?" Please *jiggling belly* jetpack or grappling gun only. Thanks to PK, who agrees they always say use the stairs in case of emergency, and what's 2020 if not a nonstop emergency? Besides, how do you social distance in an elevator? I mean if somebody farts everyone smells it.




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Jio, Airtel और Vodafone के ये हैं लंबी अवधि वाले प्लांस, नहीं कराना पड़ेगा हर बार मोबाइल नंबर रिचार्ज

कोरोना संक्रमण के कारण पूरे देश में लॉकडाउन लगा हुआ है और यह कब खत्म होगा इसका अंदाजा लगाया जाना मुश्किल है। ऐसे में आप भी हर महीने मोबाइल नंबर रिचार्ज करा कर परेशान हो गए हैं, तो यह खबर आपके लिए है।




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मास्क ना पहनने वालों की पहचान करने के लिए फ्रांस कर रहा AI का इस्तेमाल

फ्रांस की सरकार ऐसे लोगों को पकड़ने के लिए AI आधारित सिक्योरिटी कैमरे का इस्तेमाल कर रही है जो पेरिस मेट्रो में बिना मास्क सफर कर रहे हैं। ब्लूमबर्ग की रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि इस सॉफ्टवेयर का इस्तेमाल पहले कई जगहों पर किया जा चुका है।




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Airtel के तीन धांसू प्लांस हुए लॉन्च, अनलिमिटेड कॉलिंग के साथ रोज मिलेगा 1GB डाटा

भारत की दिग्गज टेलीकॉम कंपनी एयरटेल ने अपने ग्राहकों को फायदा पहुंचाने के लिए तीन नए प्री-पेड प्लान लॉन्च किए हैं। इन तीनों प्लान की कीमत 99 रुपये, 129 रुपये और 199 रुपये है।




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MERMAIDs detect distant earthquakes

Free-floating observatories record seismic waves to help study Earth's interior.




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Pokemon GO Friends List 'Failed to get friends list' error is back



Failed to get friends list and several more Pokemon GO friends list errors are once again impacting players on iOS and Android.




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Fortnite Party Royale Event Skin 'Nightlife' available from Epic Games Item Shop



The new Nightlife reactive skin is now live ahead of the Fortnite Party Royale event which starts later today.




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RPGCast – Episode 247: “Japan Isn’t All Maid Cafés”

This week we figure out what to play on Wii U. Pier Solar decides what we should play on the Dreamcast. FFXIV decides that we...




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RPGCast – Episode 265: “Where Can I Find Some Sailors?”

This week we learn what everyone is looking forward to playing in 2013. We also find a new way to get our Game Dev Story...




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RPGCast – Episode 271: “SAMU-RAI!”

We cut our way to the main news…oh look another trading card. I mean…wow that’s a good price for that game…er…excuse me. We do a...




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RPGCast – Episode 272: “Horga’hn Trail”

Chris gets his wish, but is it more than he can handle? Eidos’s GM decides that yes, it is more than he can handle. The...




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RPGCast – Episode 283: “Aisles of War”

At Aisles of War we have all your maritime warfare needs. From Spanish galleons to French corvettes our ship selection is unparalleled. We also have...




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RPGCast – Episode 314: “What’s That Game Again?”

Natural doctrines come along so infrequently that you’d think we’d notice when one was cresting over the horizon. The record keepers come, gathering magic in...




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RPGCast – Episode 342: “It’s Not Available Digitally”

Final Fantasy XI announces its plans for its golden years. Fossil Fighters still exists. Then Phil either recommends or doesn’t recommend Avernum. I’m still not...




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RPGCast – Episode 348: “You Know, That Funny Thing I Said”

Chris has to resist the lure of the bratwurst to record a show. Anna Marie has to match 3. Alice has to deliver missiles…wait…she didn’t...




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RPGCast – Episode 363: “Trailers”

This week we’ve got impressions of Dragon Quest Heroes, Triforce Heroes, and Age of Decadence. Then we explain Digimon and Super Robot Wars. And anything...




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RPGCast – Episode 378: “Oh Wait, They Came”

Alex and Alice teach Chris a thing or two about tea, cricket, and lacrosse. The sport, not the city. Alice then defends herself from the...




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RPGCast – Episode 402: “Bait And Switch”

While Nintendo tries to own the news cycle this week, we have a bigger story. There is apparently a non Final Fantasy character in World...




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RPGCast – Episode 403: “Wait And DLC!”

Chris dies in Dark Souls 22 times. Anna Marie plays that one town in Dragon Quest 7 AGAIN. Kelley collects demonic Pokémon. Alex loses at...




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RPGCast – Episode 442: “THEY SUPLEX THE TRAIN”

At some point Chris dropped a keyboard on the floor during this show and lost a tilde key. Anna Marie lost her mind trying to...




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RPGCast – Episode 451: “Succumbed To The Cult Of Trails”

It’s a new year but it has the same old shenanigans. Not finishing games, PC hackers, getting distracted by shiny new toys, and Tarutaru addiction....




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RPGCast – Episode 481: “Hairy Man-Back Makes Me Hungry”

Things go off the rail before we get to the meat of the show. But we pull it together to discuss what we've been playing, too many Compile Heart games, and a potential dungeon crawling disaster.




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RPGCast – Episode 496: “Painful Sneeze Out Of Ten”

We’re joined by a new staffer (Peter) this week for a HUGE cast! We set off a KEMCO alert with massively overpriced DLC, we’re accidentally...




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RPGCast – Episode 499: “Kung Fu Maids”

It's the final countdown! Chris and Anna Marie are joined by regular Kelley and irregular Jonathan, who always brings interesting games and hardware to discuss. April Fool's just passed, and several companies got silly. We also considered piles of feedback in the Question of the Week. We'll miss you all, see you in six weeks.




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RPGCast – Episode 508: “I Need Waifus”

Fire Emblem Three Houses released this week and we're (almost) all playing it - but there's a bit of controversy afoot. Pascal talks about poor choices he's made in other games. And the news section is all twisty, tumbly, and turvy. Now back to our respective waifus, husbandos, and depressing games...sos.




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RPG Cast – Episode 541: “Let Him Explain!”

We’re back with a juicy show to kick off May. Alex, Chris, Josh, and Kelley join host Anna Marie for a catch-up segment of what we’ve all been playing for the last two weeks. News of the last two weeks gets a little weird as games are being delayed left and right, yet Indivisible somehow gets released early? What a weird world we live in.




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Ray of hope as Scots armed forces veterans wait two years for a mental health plan

ARMED forces veterans are facing a threat from an enemy they cannot see.




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Walk the line: pinstripes are the business once again – in pictures

Paired with a T-shirt or even just a vest, the classic stripe returns for men this season. Take inspiration from these high-fashion looks riffing on the boardroom staple

  • Read more from the spring/summer 2020 edition of The Fashion, our biannual style supplement
Continue reading...




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Wednesday Addams plaits and Jurassic Park chic: 14 style lessons

From haute gardening hats, to nettles dresses and sexy necklines, here are the trends that are coming for you for this spring/summer

  • Read more from the spring/summer 2020 edition of The Fashion, our biannual style supplement

Afraid of looking like a dunce when it comes to your fashion knowledge? We’ve created a cheat sheet for the new season.

Continue reading...




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Towards antibodies against COVID-19

Researchers have announced the isolation and characterization of a unique antibody that can bind to the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). The team has established that the antibody binds to a conserved epitope on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.




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Bat 'super immunity' may explain how bats carry coronaviruses, study finds

Researchers have uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick -- research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.




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Regularly attending religious services associated with lower risk of deaths of despair, study finds

People who attended religious services at least once a week were significantly less likely to die from 'deaths of despair,' including deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning, according to new research.




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Focused ultrasound opening brain to previously impossible treatments

Focused ultrasound, the researchers hope, could revolutionize treatment for conditions from Alzheimer's to epilepsy to brain tumors -- and even help repair the devastating damage caused by stroke.




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Certain foods common in diets of US adults with inflammatory bowel disease

Foods, such as French fries, cheese, cookies, soda, and sports and energy drinks, are commonly found in the diets of United States adults with inflammatory bowel disease, according to a new study.




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For better migraine treatment, try adding some downward dogs

Adding yoga to your regularly prescribed migraine treatment may be better than medication alone, according to a new study. The new research suggests yoga may help people with migraines have headaches that happen less often, don't last as long and are less painful.




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Sleep difficulties linked to altered brain development in infants who later develop autism

New research finds that sleep problems in a baby's first 12 months may not only precede an autism diagnosis, but also may be associated with altered growth trajectory in a key part of the brain, the hippocampus.




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Reuters Entertainment News Summary




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Spain's coronavirus daily death tolls falls to 179 on Saturday




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Britain to quarantine incoming travellers for 14-days -Times report




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Czech Airlines to restart some flights after coronavirus grounding




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‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case

Systemic flaws within Glynn county’s district attorney offices led to a lack of action against the men involved in this ‘modern lynching’In the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, multiple Glynn county law enforcement officials failed to thoroughly investigate his death and, in one case, refused to allow police officers to make arrests, the Guardian has learned.Arbery, 25, was jogging through the neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia, on 23 February when he was shot dead by two white men. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were charged with murder and aggravated assault on Thursday evening, after graphic video footage of the killing was released publicly and sparked national outrage.Lawyers for Arbery’s family have called the killing a “modern lynching” and decried the lack of action in the case prior to the release of the video, pointing to racial inequalities in the criminal justice system.In the police report, Gregory McMichael claimed Arbery “violently attacked” his son, who shot Arbery in self defense.Jackie Johnson, the Glynn county district attorney, refused to allow police officers who responded to arrest the two men, Glynn county commissioner Peter Murphy told the Guardian in a phone call on Friday.The police department was put in touch with one of Johnson’s assistant district attorneys after the shooting, but Johnson made the decision not to charge the father and son, the former having worked in her office for more than 20 years, Murphy said.“The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them,” Allen Booker, the Glynn county district 5 commissioner, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation. She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”Days later, Johnson recused herself. Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. By 27 February, George Barnhill, the Waycross judicial district attorney, and the second of three DAs on the case, took over. Less than 24 hours after seeing the video and evidence compiled by the police, Murphy said, Barnhill decided to not charge the McMichaels.“And so within 24 hours the Glynn county police had been told by two separate DA offices not to make any arrests,” Murphy said. “And obviously, they want to assume no responsibility for their actions.”On 2 April, Barnhill sent an email to law enforcement authorities saying the 25-year-old Arbery had an “apparent aggressive nature” and that his family were “not strangers to the local criminal justice system”.“Arbery’s mental health records & prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man,” Barnhill said in the email, which was first reported by the New York Times.“What it appears is he was purposely trying to assault the character of the victim and there’s just no reason why,” said Chris Stewart, one of the lawyers representing Arbery’s family.The family have pointed to the McMichaels’ connection to local law enforcement both at the district attorney’s office and police department as evidence of systemic flaws and roadblocks in their search for justice. It was only after the video of Arbery’s death was released this week that the third DA’s office requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) get involved.On Friday, GBI director Vic Reynolds told reporters he could not “answer what another agency did or didn’t see” in the first two months of the investigation.“But I can tell you that based on our involvement in this case and considering the fact we hit the ground running Wednesday morning and within 36 hours we had secured warrants for two individuals for felony murder, I think that speaks volumes for itself.”In a 7 April email sent to the office of Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, Barnhill recused himself because his son worked on a case involving Arbery while working in Johnson’s office.Lee Merritt, one of the lawyers who represents Arbery’s family, said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, found the connection between Barnhill’s son and her own on Facebook and brought it to the attention of his office.“She followed the links. That’s exactly how it happened,” he said to the Guardian on Friday by phone.According to a police report filed 23 February, Gregory and Travis McMichael grabbed their weapons, a .357 Magnum revolver and a shotgun, jumped into a truck and followed Arbery as he ran.In the email to Carr from early April, Barnhill references a “decent cell phone video of the entire shooting incident”, an apparent reference to the one leaked this week.Reynolds said on Friday that the investigation into the shooting, the video and the person who filmed it, would continue.“Every stone will be uncovered,” Reynolds said.





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Reuters Entertainment News Summary




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For a Georgia Police Force, a Bungled Shooting Case Follows a Trail of Woes

BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- When the Glynn County Police Department arrived at the scene of a fatal shooting in February in southeastern Georgia, officers encountered a former colleague with the victim's blood on his hands.They took down his version of events and let him and his adult son, who had fired the shots, go home.Later that day, Wanda Cooper, the mother of the 25-year-old victim, Ahmaud Arbery, received a call from a police investigator. She recounted later that the investigator said her son had been involved in a burglary and was killed by "the homeowner," an inaccurate version of what had happened.More than two months after that fatal confrontation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case this week, arrested the former officer, Gregory McMichael, and his son, Travis McMichael, on charges of murder and aggravated assault.The charges -- which came after the release of a graphic video showing the killing as the two white men confront Arbery, who was African American -- made clear the depths of the local department's bungling of the case, which was just the latest in a series of troubling episodes involving its officers.And it was one element of the broader potential breakdown of the justice system in South Georgia. Attorney General Chris Carr, through a spokeswoman, said Friday that he planned to start a review of all of the relevant players in that system.Carr's office has already determined that George E. Barnhill, a district attorney who was assigned the case in February but recused himself late last month, should have never taken it on. Among his many conflicts: His son once worked alongside one of the suspects at the local prosecutor's office.S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Arbery's family, has called for a federal civil rights investigation focused not only on the men who pursued Arbery but also the broader justice system."It's small-town America," Merritt said in an interview Thursday. "Those counties, the law enforcement community there, they know each other well; they recycle officers in between themselves -- it's a very tight-knit community."Over the years, Glynn County police officers have been accused of covering up allegations of misconduct, tampering with a crime scene, interfering in an investigation of a police shooting and retaliating against fellow officers who cooperated with outside investigators.The police chief was indicted days after Arbery's killing on charges related to an alleged cover-up of an officer's sexual relationship with an informant. The chief, John Powell, had been hired to clean up the department, which the Glynn County manager described last fall as suffering from poor training, outdated policies and "a culture of cronyism."The Glynn County force was the sort of department where disciplinary records went missing and where evidence room standards were not maintained, leading the state to strip it of its accreditation.Arbery was killed after the McMichaels confronted him while he was running in the Satilla Shores neighborhood just outside of Brunswick, the Glynn County seat. But neither of the McMichaels was arrested immediately after the slaying, which occurred Feb. 23 about 1 p.m.According to a police report, Gregory McMichael said that he saw Arbery running through his neighborhood and thought that he looked like the suspect in a rash of recent break-ins. McMichael, 64, told authorities that he and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, armed themselves and began chasing him in a truck.Gregory McMichael had been a Glynn County police officer from 1982 to 1989 and later worked as an investigator in the local prosecutor's office, before retiring last year.Darren W. Penn, a lawyer and a department critic, said the Ahmaud Arbery case was "another symptom or sign of a police department that appears willing to protect those that they know."Penn is representing a woman who is suing the department over claims that it failed to intervene with her estranged son-in-law, a Glynn County officer, who killed her daughter, a friend and himself in 2018.County officials and a police spokesman could not be reached Friday for comment.From the start, McMichael's connections to the police department and the prosecutor's office presented other challenges.The first district attorney assigned to the case, Jackie Johnson, recused herself because she had worked with McMichael. The second prosecutor, Barnhill, advised Glynn County police that there was "insufficient probable cause" to issue arrest warrants, according to an internal document.Finally, the case moved to Tom Durden, the district attorney in Georgia's Atlantic Judicial Circuit in Hinesville, who this week formally asked the state bureau of investigation to get involved, according to a GBI statement. A Justice Department spokesperson said this week that the FBI was assisting in the investigation.Bob Coleman, a county commissioner at large, was critical of Johnson, saying she should have given the case to the state attorney general, not Barnhill. After the Georgia Bureau of Investigation made arrests this week, Coleman said, "That's what should have happened a long time ago before the sun went down. They killed a person in the bright sunlight."Glynn County is a marshy coastal corner of Georgia about 300 miles southeast of Atlanta with about 85,000 residents, and is known mostly for its mellow barrier islands and its rich African American coastal culture.Like many Southern communities, its history is studded with racial violence, including three late 19th-century lynchings. Today, the county is about 70% white and 27% black, according to census figures.On Friday, hundreds gathered under the moss-draped trees outside the Glynn County courthouse to protest, arguing that the handling of the case had been botched as months went by without charges."I will never call the Glynn County police to my house!" one of Arbery's aunts said.Mario Baggs, a lifelong resident of Brunswick, said he believed that race was a factor in Arbery's killing, given the unfair treatment black men have long received."The black man is an endangered species," Baggs, 46, said. "We need justice; we need relief; we need the world to pay attention."Yet he also believed that Arbery's case fit into a larger pattern of dysfunction.Over the last decade, the Glynn County Police Department, which has 122 officers, has faced at least 17 lawsuits, including allegations of illegal search and seizure.One suit accused the department of wrongfully killing an unarmed white woman after officers fired through her car windshield. An investigation into that shooting found that Glynn County officers had tried to interfere with the inquiry to protect the officers involved.One of the officers in that shooting later killed his estranged wife and a friend. The wife's mother accused police of ignoring several alarming encounters in the months before the killings.Powell, the police chief, was arrested this year along with three other department officials after an investigation into a disbanded narcotics task force. The inquiry found that Powell had actively tried to shield wrongdoing by the task force. That led to his indictment on charges including violating the oath of office, criminal attempt to commit a felony and influencing a witness.As details of Arbery's death slowly emerged and were reported in The Brunswick News, Arbery's mother, increasingly distraught, called the department. She said that she had been told one thing but that the newspaper had reported something else entirely.Cooper's faith was shaken. "It's hard when you can't really believe what authority tells you, you know?" she said. "When you just cannot believe the people that's supposed to look out for all people. And when you question that, it's not a good feeling."Attempts to reach Gregory McMichael late last month were unsuccessful. In a brief phone conversation late last month, Travis McMichael, who runs a company that gives custom boat tours, declined to comment, citing the continuing investigation.The two men made a brief appearance in Glynn County Magistrate Court on Friday afternoon, but court officials said they did not enter a plea. No information about their lawyers was immediately available.Questions about the handling of Arbery's case extend beyond the police department and to Barnhill, the prosecutor who told police that there was insufficient probable cause to arrest the McMichaels.In an email Barnhill wrote to the state attorney general's office April 7, he asked to be taken off the case, stating that his son, an assistant district attorney in the Brunswick prosecutor's office, had handled a felony probation revocation case involving Arbery. He also said Gregory McMichael had helped with "a previous prosecution of Arbery."Court records show that Arbery was convicted of shoplifting and of violating probation in 2018; according to local news reports, he was indicted five years earlier for taking a handgun to a basketball game.Barnhill's office most recently drew attention beyond south Georgia for its prosecution of a black woman in rural Coffee County who had helped a first-time voter use a voting machine in the 2012 election. In 2018, a jury found the woman not guilty of multiple felonies. Her lawyers called the case "a racially motivated targeted prosecution."J. Peter Murphy, a Glynn County commissioner, on Friday defended the Police Department's decision to make no arrests in the shooting of Arbery. Murphy said the agency had been advised not to make arrests by both Barnhill and officials at the office of Johnson, the district attorney in Brunswick who formally asked to be taken off the case four days after the shooting. Neither prosecutor could be reached for comment."Tell me what the agency did wrong when its men and women were told several times not to arrest anyone?" Murphy said, referring to police. "What were they supposed to do? Cuff these guys and walk them into the jail and have no one prosecute them?"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company