Brazilian cities went into partial shutdown on Friday as the country observed its first general strike in more than two decades.

Millions of workers, including public transport staff, bankers and teachers, have been urged to take part by trade unions and social groups.

Protesters are taking a stand against the president's proposed pension reforms.

President Michel Temer says the changes are needed to overcome a recession.

"It is going to be the biggest strike in the history of Brazil," said Paulo Pereira da Silva, the president of trade union group, Forca Sindical.

Demonstrations are taking place across the country, with organisers saying they would focus attention on disrupting cities rather than small towns and rural communities.

Participants are opposed to the government's pension overhaul, which will be voted on in Congress next week and which could set the minimum retirement age at 65 for men and 62 for women. Public sector workers have been able to retire at much earlier ages.

A congressional bill to weaken labour laws also progressed earlier in the week, and the country is experiencing an ever-unfolding corruption scandal, which has been linked to many top politicians, fuelling further public discontent.

• Brazil corruption probe targets ministers
• World Cup stadiums investigated
• Operation Car Wash: A glossary

Some protesters set up roadblocks in various cities, including Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia.

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Police try to unblock a street in Rio de Janeiro

Is it appropriate for my four-year-old daughter to play Minecraft?

Minecraft itself is harmless-- as long as you keep your child away from online servers. The game is fun, it's stimulating, and it really has no inappropriate content. Online gaming is likely not a good idea, as your four-year-old daughter presumably has not developed social skills.

Online gaming aside, the biggest problem is not Minecraft, but video games in general. I am a socially incompetent teenager who was addicted to video games until a couple of years ago, ever since I was 7. My problem was that video gaming took up lots of time I could have spent out interacting with friends IRL (at the very least, time spent away from the screen). And I have

seen far worse-- kids who play XBOX, PS3, Wii, all day. And when they don't get to play, they scream and yell and kick. I sometimes cried when my parents took away the computer. And that's not even the half of it; I have a teenage acquaintance who yells and cusses at his parents over the phone when they interrupt his video game.

Some people are more prone to video game addiction than others (I am one of those people). But don't take away video games entirely; I'll bet many kids nowadays also play video games, and taking that away from your child can be alienating.

Don't let your child miss out on video games, but don't let her get addicted like so many other children. Let her on the computer, but take it away if it becomes a problem. Punishment is hard, but addiction is hard to stop after it's already surfaced.

Fashion retailer Nordstrom is selling a pair of $425 jeans that allegedly show "you're not afraid to get down and dirty."

The "Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans," which come with a "caked-on muddy coating," have been roundly mocked on social media, with Mike Rowe remarking that the jeans are intended to make someone appear like they have a dirty job when they do not.

"The Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans aren’t pants. They’re not even fashion. They’re a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic – not iconic," Rowe wrote on Facebook.

On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Brian Kilmeade echoed Rowe's sentiment, saying that if you're going to wear muddy jeans, you should earn the mud.

He noted that the description on the Nordstrom website says the jeans "embody rugged, Americana workwear that's seen some hard-working action with a crackled, caked-on muddy coating that shows you're not afraid to get down and dirty."

"But yet you are afraid, because you have to buy somebody else's dirt," Kilmeade said.

"It's for the trust fund baby. It's for the kid who inherits the millions of dollars, the kid who doesn't want to work hard and wants to go into Nordstrom, pay a lot of money and act like they work," Ainsley Eardhardt said.

Steve Doocy said "hats off" to Nordstrom if they really can get $425 for these jeans, which are made in Portugal.

"If got a closet full of clothes that could look just like that in about half an hour," Doocy said. "If it works out, I'm going in to business too!"

See more reaction from the "Fox & Friends" co-hosts above.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with business leaders in the State Department Library on the White House complex in Washington, Tuesday, April 11, 2017.

Evan Vucci

Just last week, Donald Trump’s White House tried to play a little hardball. With a government-shutdown deadline looming, Team Trump sent word to Capitol Hill that the president expects any spending bill to include taxpayer money for a border wall. Since there was no chance Democrats would agree to such a demand, it meant one of two things would happen.

Either Trump would shut the federal government down on Friday at midnight, which would be politically problematic for him and his administration, or Trump would surrender, which would be politically problematic for him and his administration.

The president has apparently chosen the latter.

President Donald Trump has indicated that he’s willing to back away from his demand that a government funding bill include money to build a wall on the Southern border, a move that could help clear the way for Congress to avoid a shutdown.

A senior administration official tells NBC News that the president is open to obtaining funding for the border wall in the regular appropriations process for 2018 later this year instead of insisting it be included as part of the large spending bill to keep the government’s lights on past this week.

According to a Washington Post report, the president personally hosted a private meeting with some conservative media figures yesterday afternoon and told them he’s prepared to delay funding for the wall “until September.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters yesterday. “The president is working hard to keep the government open.” And by “working hard,” Mnuchin apparently meant, “crawling away from the corner he backed himself into without any plan for success.”

Democrats are likely to agree to some new funding for border security, in the form of investments in “technology and border agents,” and it’s easy to imagine the president pretending that this is money for some kind of symbolic, metaphorical wall, but let’s not play games: Trump and his team effectively told Democrats, “Allocate money for the wall or else.” Calling the White House’s bluff, Democrats replied, “No.”

And in response, Team Trump blinked.

For a guy who billed himself as a world-class expert in negotiations, the president is remarkably bad at this. It was painfully obvious from the start that this strategy would fail, but Trump and his aides pursued this gambit anyway.

The fact that the White House took one posture last week, only to take a more conciliatory line this week, doesn’t count as a flip-flop, per se. It’s actually something far worse: it’s an example of Trump talking tough, only to quit when the pressure rose and no one much cared about his chest-thumping.

For a fairly new and unpopular president, developing a reputation for failing to follow through on threats will carry consequences. Trump said he desperately needed a Muslim ban. He vowed to unveil a cybersecurity plan. He swore his voter-fraud commission would tackle important work. He’d demand an up-or-down vote in the House on the American Health Care Act. He’d label China a currency manipulator. Each of these commitments were either ignored or forgotten about by an easily distracted president who, everyone now knows, doesn’t always mean what he says.

Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy is known for having said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Donald Trump’s maxim appears to be, “Speak bigly and carry a small golf club.”

FILE - This combination of undated file photos provided by the Arkansas Department of Correction shows death-row inmates Jack Jones, left, and Marcel Williams. The two Arkansas inmates scheduled to be put to death Monday, April 24, 2017, in what could be the nation's first double execution in more than 16 years have asked an appeals court to halt their lethal injections because of poor health. (Arkansas Department of Correction via AP, File)  (The Associated Press)

Arkansas executes two inmates in one night, first state to do so since 2000

Arkansas executed two condemned murderers Monday night, becoming the first state in 17 years to carry out two death sentences in one day. 

Marcel Williams was pronounced dead at 10:33 p.m. Central Time, 17 minutes after the procedure began at the Cummins Unit in southeastern Arkansas. Jack Jones had been put to death more than three hours earlier. 

Williams' execution had been delayed for two hours after a federal judge in Little Rock issued an emergency stay over concerns about how Jones' execution was carried out. Williams' attorneys claimed Jones gasped for air, an account the state's attorney general denied, but the judge lifted her stay about an hour later.

Initially, Gov. Asa Hutchinson scheduled four double executions over an 11-day period in April. The eight executions would have been the most by a state in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state said the executions needed to be carried out before its supply of one lethal injection drug expires on April 30.

The first three executions were canceled because of court decisions, then inmate Ledell Lee was executed last week.

Arkansas' last double execution occurred in 1999.

Jones was sent to death row for the 1995 rape and killing of Mary Phillips. He strangled her with the cord to a coffee pot.

He was also convicted of attempting to kill Phillips' 11-year-old daughter and was convicted in another rape and killing in Florida.

Jones said earlier this month that he was ready for execution. He used a wheelchair and he'd had a leg amputated in prison because of diabetes.

Williams' "morbid obesity makes it likely that either the IV line cannot be placed or that it will be placed in error, thus causing substantial damage (like a collapsed lung)," his attorneys wrote in an earlier court filing asking justices to block the execution.

Both men were served last meals on Monday afternoon, Arkansas Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves said. Jones had fried chicken, potato logs with tartar sauce, beef jerky bites, three candy bars, a chocolate milkshake and fruit punch. Williams had fried chicken, banana pudding, nachos, two sodas and potato logs with ketchup, Graves said.

In recent pleadings before state and federal courts, the inmates said the three drugs Arkansas uses to execute prisoners -- midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride -- could be ineffective because of their poor health.

Jones, 52, lost a leg to diabetes and was on insulin. Williams, 46, weighs 400 pounds, is diabetic and has concerns that the execution team might not be able to find a suitable vein to support an intravenous line.

The poor health of both men, their lawyers claimed, could make it difficult for them to respond during a consciousness check following a megadose of midazolam. The state shouldn't risk giving them drugs to stop their lungs and hearts if they aren't unconscious, they have told courts.

The last state to put more than one inmate to death on the same day was Texas, which executed two killers in August 2000. Oklahoma planned a double execution in 2014 but scrapped plans for the second one after the execution of Clayton Lockett went awry.

Arkansas executed four men in an eight-day period in 1960. The only quicker pace included quadruple executions in 1926 and 1930.

Williams was sent to death row for the 1994 rape and killing of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station in central Arkansas.

Authorities said Williams abducted and raped two other women in the days before he was arrested in Errickson's death. Williams admitted responsibility to the state Parole Board last month.

"I wish I could take it back, but I can't," Williams told the board.

"After more than 20 years, justice has prevailed for the family of Stacey Errickson," Hutchinson said in a statement after Williams' death. "This is a serious and reflective time in our state and it is important for the Errickson family and all Arkansans to know that in this case our laws ended in justice."

In a letter earlier this month, Jones said he was ready to be killed by the state. The letter, which his attorney read aloud at his clemency hearing, went on to say: "I shall not ask to be forgiven, for I haven't the right."

After Jones was put to death, Hutchinson said in a statement that the "rule of law had been upheld."

"A governor never asks for this responsibility, but I accept it as part of the solemn pledge I made to uphold the law," he added. "We hope this will help bring closure to the Phillips family."

Including Jones and Williams, nine people have been executed in the United States this year, four in Texas, three in Arkansas and one each in Missouri and Virginia. Last year, 20 people were executed, down from 98 in 1999 and the lowest number since 14 in 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

See, the wax worm is apparently not averse to eating plastic. An amateur beekeeper in Spain discovered this when she plucked some of the pests from her beehives and put them in a plastic bag. The worms eventually ate little holes in the bag, chewing through the plastic at an alarming rate.

This led to a wonderful idea: What if these so-called pests could actually help break down polyethylene, a common and non-biodegradable plastic currently clogging up landfills around the world?

How good are these little grubs?

The beekeeper is actually Federica Bertocchini, a scientist at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria. She and two researchers from the University of Cambridge's Department of Biochemistry put together a study to see just how good these little grubs were at passing the plastic, so to speak.

The answer? Very. The team found the wax worms broke down polyethylene plastic bags faster than other recently-tested methods. There are still more tests that need to be done, but if scientists can replicate whatever causes the breakdown, if could be used to alleviate the burden of non-biodegradable waste.

"If a single enzyme is responsible for this chemical process, its reproduction on a large scale using biotechnological methods should be achievable," said Cambridge's Paolo Bombelli, first author of the study.

The team also used a rather analog method to make sure it was an actual chemical process helping the caterpillars get rid of the plastic, and not just some voracious, bag-centric appetite:

"To confirm it wasn't just the chewing mechanism of the caterpillars degrading the plastic, the team mashed up some of the worms and smeared them on polyethylene bags, with similar results," a summary of the study reads.

Bacteria May be Reason Some Foods Cause Heart Disease, Stroke

Researchers trying to figure out how meat causes heart disease came up with another possible explanation Monday: an essential nutrient found in meat and eggs might be a culprit.

They found evidence that choline may feed gut bacteria that in turn produce a compound that makes blood sticky and prone to form clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes.

A photo of eggs cooked to different temperatures included in "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji López-Alt. J. Kenji López-Alt / W.W. Norton and Company

It's the latest in their series of studies looking at what specific compounds in food raise people's risk of heart disease, the no. 1 cause of death in the U.S. and much of the world.

Choline is considered an essential nutrient and getting too little can, ironically, lead to heart disease, cancer and other conditions.

It's found in abundant quantities in egg yolks, liver, red meat, peanuts and wheat germ.

The human body is probably the most studied biological system ever. You’d think that by now we’d know all there is to know about our lungs, skin, and kidneys. But time and again, scientists keep uncovering yet another facet of our own make-up. Now, researchers have discovered four new types of blood cells that we didn’t know existed.

Previously, types of blood cells have been identified based on the particular proteins they express on their surfaces, but this technique can miss difficult-to-identify or rare classes of blood cells. To refine this, the researchers have used something called single-cell genomics, which allows them to look in detail at the differences in gene expression between different cells. In doing so, they gain a much more accurate picture as to what cell types exist.

By doing this, they have been able to uncover four new classes of white blood cells. A crucial part of the immune system, white blood cells are subdivided into different types that play different roles in the fight against infection. This latest study, published in Science, has found two new types of dendritic cells and two new types of monocyte cells.

Dendritic cells play a crucial role in linking the innate immune system, which involves the defences such as skin and membranes that help fight infection, and the adaptive immune system, in which specialized cells process and eliminate pathogens, as well as retain a memory should they face the same infection again. The role of the dendritic cells is to take up fragments of the antigen infecting the body and then present parts of it on their surface to “educate” T-cells, which then hunt down and kill the pathogen.

The monocyte cells provide a different role within the immune system. They are the largest type of white blood cell, and can go on to form what are known as macrophages, which go to the site of infection and gobble up and digest the pathogens, removing them from the body.  

“In this study, scientists have used cutting-edge technologies to find that there are many more types of cell than we originally thought," explains Divya Shah, from Wellcome’s Infection and Immunobiology team, who helped fund the study. "The next step is to find out what each of these cell types do in our immune system, both when we’re healthy and during disease.”

Author Robert Pirsig and his son Chris in 1968. Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 
died Monday at age 88.

William Morrow/HarperCollins

Robert M. Pirsig, who inspired generations to road trip across America with his "novelistic autobigraphy," Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, died Monday at the age of 88.

His publisher William Morrow & Company said in a statement that Pirsig died at his home in South Berwick, Maine, "after a period of failing health."

Pirsig wrote just two books: Zen (subtitled "An Inquiry Into Values") and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals.

Zen was published in 1974, after being rejected by 121 publishing houses. "The book is brilliant beyond belief," wrote Morrow editor James Landis before publication. "It is probably a work of genius and will, I'll wager, attain classic status."

Indeed, the book quickly became a best-seller, and has proved enduring as a work of popular philosophy. A 1968 motorcycle trip across the West with his son Christopher was his inspiration.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviewed Zen for The New York Times in 1974. "[H]owever impressive are the seductive powers with which Mr. Pirsig engages us in his motorcycle trip, they are nothing compared to the skill with which he interests us in his philosophic trip," he wrote. "Mr. Pirsig may sometimes appear to be a greener‐America proselytizer, with his beard and his motorcycle tripping and his talk about learning to love technology. But when he comes to grips with the hard philosophical conundrums raised by the 1960's, he can be electrifying."

Pirsig was born in Minneapolis, the son of a University of Minnesota law professor. He graduated from high school at 15 and enlisted in the Army after World War II. While stationed in South Korea, he encountered the Asian philosophies that would underpin his work. He went on to study Hindu philosophy in India and for a time was enrolled in a philosophy Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. He was hospitalized for mental illness and returned to Minneapolis, where he worked as a technical writer and began writing his first book.

Pirsig also helped found the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, then lived reclusively and worked on Lila for 17 years before its publication in 1991. "A skilled mechanic, he performed repairs in his home workshop," writes the publisher. "He taught himself navigation in the days before GPS, and twice crossed the Atlantic in his small sailboat, Aretê."

The protagonist of Zen attempts to resolve the conflicts between "classic" values that create machinery like the motorcycle, and "romantic" values like the beauty of a country road. He discovers all values find their root in what Pirsig called Quality:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was one of just two books that Pirsig wrote. It has endured as a work of popular philosophy.

Alan Levine/Flickr






"Quality . . . you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist."

INSTRUCTIONS

• Go to a quiet room, shut off all the lights and place a lit candle in front of you

• Focus your attention on the candle flame

• Breath deeply in through your nose, pause and then breath slower out through your mouth

• If unwanted thoughts come, just return your attention to your breathing and the flame


CONT...

• Do this exercise everyday for a week Just to practice getting yourself to a relaxed state of mind

• Once you're able to relax at will, bring up a problem or question that is unanswered

• Focus on solving 1 problem or letting go of 1 unnecessary worry at a time

• Monitor how you feel when you're thinking about the issue

• At the end, blow out the candle and sit quietly with eyes closed for a few minutes

It used to be that your teens would go online only to research an assignment or play a game. These days, your teens are practically attached to their computers, checking Facebook, adding music to their iPods and streaming YouTube clips. Even if they have friends over, it's not uncommon to see all of them huddled around the computer doing something online.

You've probably heard that increased Internet use is associated with poor eating habits, lessened physical activity and behavioral issues. A new study published in the journal Injury Prevention shows that Internet addiction can also lead teens to cause themselves harm through pulling their own hair or hitting, pinching or burning themselves.

A survey of more than 1,600 teenagers in China found that teens who were moderately addicted to the Internet were 2.4 times more likely to have self-injured themselves in the past six months than those with normal Internet habits. Teens who were severely addicted to the Internet were nearly five times as likely to injure themselves. 

Though self-injurious behavior can be attributed to many different factors, such as depression, stressful life events or family problems, the study found that Internet addiction on its own can lead to teens harming themselves.

Recognizing Signs of Internet Addiction

An Internet addiction is classified the same as other addictions, such as those to drugs, alcohol or gambling. If your teen simply goes on the Internet frequently, it is unlikely you have anything to worry about. But if your teen is exhibiting any of the following signs of an Internet addiction, you may want to take action:

• Excessive time spent devoted to using the Internet
• Depression, moodiness or nervousness when not online
• Fantasizing about or being preoccupied with being online
• A change in sleeping patterns or habits
• Sudden weight loss or weight gain
• Lying about time spent on the Internet or denying use
• Neglecting family, friends or activities they used to enjoy
• Using the Internet to avoid problems

Internet addicts can also experience physical symptoms such as dry eyes, backaches, migraine headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome.

What to Do if Your Teen Has an Internet Addiction

If you are concerned that your teen does have an Internet addiction, especially if they are causing self-harm, there are some things you can do:

• Limit time spent online. With unlimited access to the Internet 24 hours a day, stopping an addiction is nearly impossible. Set limits on the amount of time your teen is allowed to go online. If necessary, log them on and off the computer so that you make sure the time limits are followed.
• Take the computer out of their rooms. If your teen has a computer in their bedroom, it's easy for them to get online when you're not around. Move the computer to a shared room so that you can see how much time they are spending online and better monitor their habits.
• Ask them about it. Though there's a good chance your teen will deny having an Internet addiction, and may not even be aware they have one, ask them about it. Find out why they are going online and what their Internet habits are to help determine if there is an addiction to be broken.
• Get them help. Much like any other addiction, an Internet addiction likely requires professional treatment. Therapy can help your teen address the addiction, any underlying issues causing the addiction and issues related to self-injury. If outpatient therapy is not enough to break your teen's addiction, you may want to seek help through a residential treatment center or therapeutic boarding school, where your teen will have a supportive environment in which to break their addiction and learn healthy coping mechanisms.

Don't think that your teen's Internet addiction will just go away on its own. With the increasing use of the Internet in every facet of life, your teen will need to learn to have a healthy relationship with the computer. And if an Internet addiction is causing your teen to injure themselves, taking steps now can help them better learn to manage any stress or anxiety that is causing them to do so.