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A team of teenagers who competed in a robotics competition in Washington, D.C. have gone missing:
Six teenagers from a Burundi robotics team have been reported missing after an international competition in Washington and two of them were seen entering Canada, police said on Thursday.
The four males and two females were last seen late on Tuesday afternoon when the robotics contest ended at the FIRST Global Challenge, police said. Authorities issued missing persons photographs of the six on Wednesday.
Two of the Burundians - Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, and 16-year-old Don Ingabire - were spotted crossing the United States border into Canada, District of Columbia police spokeswoman Margarita Mikhaylova said.
"We don't have any indication of foul play and we're continuing to investigate this case," she said. Police said they did not have information about how they were spotted or the nature of the border crossing.
DC Police photo on Twitter with contact number. Time notes:
There was no official indication Thursday that any of the teens were trying to avoid returning to their homes in Africa, but a leader in the Burundian community in the U.S. suggested that they may be intending to seek asylum. Immigration attorneys said an asylum application could take years to sort out.
Also at NPR, which gives a reason why the kids may want to seek asylum:
Burundi, which is in central Africa, has faced intense political unrest since 2015. "Hundreds of people have been killed, and many others tortured or forcibly disappeared," according to Human Rights Watch. "The country's once vibrant independent media and nongovernmental organizations have been decimated, and more than 400,000 people have fled the country."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @12:09PM (14 children)
How do you trust the press when it doesn't understand simple english words? Decimate means to reduce by 1/10. It does not mean destroy/obliterate/annihilate; words which are appropriate to use in this case. And don't give me that "language changes all the time" bullshit. It's the reason why the english language has become a linguistic mess.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Nuke on Friday July 21 2017, @12:31PM (6 children)
Perhaps they have really been decimated in the proper sense as you describe. How can you be sure otherwise as you don't trust the press? Do you live there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @01:13PM (3 children)
I got decimated on some Kona Gold once.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @02:41PM (2 children)
Merely a tenth the person that you were before the Kona Gold?
Would that be 0.1 in stature (height), 0.1 in IQ (or some other intelligence metric) or ???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @04:39PM
When something is reduced by a tenth, nine-tenths of it remains.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Osamabobama on Friday July 21 2017, @04:54PM
Make that nine-tenths and you've got a good quip.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @04:56PM
Really? This is a "Touché"? Is there any place a man can go to get away from the pedantic reddit-tier asinine banter that infects all these type of sites now?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday July 21 2017, @11:39PM
By suggesting that the meaning is ambiguous you reinforce AC's point. Misuse of language leads to confusion.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 21 2017, @03:15PM
Perhaps the press should use other ordinary common words like binimate, heximate, octimate, etc. which the public is more likely to understand. It is important to be precise while being concise.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @04:36PM
Don’t be a square, daddy-o.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @04:59PM
Hey now everyone, OCD is a mental disease so go easy on this grammar Nazi. Everyone deserves our tolerance and respect, except for you, that guy, her, and them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @05:17PM (2 children)
Nope. [oxforddictionaries.com] The history of usage does not support your claim.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @08:59PM (1 child)
But according to this OED article, only Mormons still decimate. Hmm, you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means, even if it does not mean what the idiot grandparent post thought it means, either.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Saturday July 22 2017, @05:20AM
So the article prompts the question: If decimatus meant to tithe, and the modern term derived from that, then what term did the Romans use for the practice of killing one in ten as punishment?
Wikipedia says decimatio but the texts linked unhelpfully do not use the term, instead referring to choosing 'one in ten' or 'a tenth' and executing them, without putting a name to the practice; though Plutarch uses δεκατείᾳ which links in a lexicon entry δεκάτ-ευσις which it translates as decimation (Aristarchus--HELP!).
In the article, the Emperor Maurice is also said to have specifically forbidden the practice in The Strategikon, but although calling himself a Roman, he wrote in Greek, which helps not at all when investigating a Latin term (not that the article bothers to link to that particular text).
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Man, I wish classical languages had been offered when I was going to school.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday July 21 2017, @11:35PM
Journalism is the vector by which a lot of "eggcorns" and other nonsense language is spread, similar to the spread of prion diseases via consumption of afflicted animals.
Just as journalists are regularly seen here on SN mixing up units of measurement in science articles, they are seen elsewhere propagating terms like irregardless, SNAFU (meant as "blunder"), copywritten (meant as "copyrighted"), ATM machine, etc.