Sabrina HarmanSabrina Harman was one of a handful of American soldiers who served time for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib.In April 2004, graphic photographs showing prisoner torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world. The images chronicled sexual humiliation, psychological torture, and physical abuse. Worst of all, many of the photos showed U.S. military members grinning nearby, including a 26-year-old Army reservist from Virginia named Sabrina Harman.Harman is featured prominently in some of the most damning photos from Abu Ghraib, including one in which she grins and gives a thumbs up while posing behind a pile of naked, hooded men. She faced five years in prison for her actions, though she was ultimately sentenced to just six months.So who was Sabrina Harman, and how did she make her way to Abu Ghraib?Sabrina Harman, The Army Reservist Who Enlisted After 9/11Harman FamilySabrina Harman in Al Hillah with an Iraqi boy in an undated photo.Born on Jan. 5, 1978, Sabrina D. Harman grew up in Virginia. Her father was a homicide detective, and her mother was a forensics buff, according to NBC News. As such, Harman grew up around talk of violence and murder, though her fellow soldiers later remembered her to be exceptionally gentle. They told the New Yorker that she would even go out of her way to save bugs. After the September 11 attacks, Harman left her job as an assistant manager at a Papa Johns Pizza in Fairfax County and enlisted as a reservist in the U.S. Army. She was assigned to the 372nd Military Police Company which, in the spring of 2003, was sent to Al Hillah, Iraq, to support the Iraqi police force. There, Harman and her fellow soldiers acted like peacekeepers. They patrolled the town, socialized with its residents, and helped train policemen. According to the New Yorker, they expected that the Iraq War would soon be over and that they would be sent home. As such, the mood was light. Instead, the 372nd was next assigned to Abu Ghraib, a notorious Iraqi prison where Saddam Hussein imprisoned and tortured dissidents. Fdy3k/Wikimedia CommonsExterior of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.Though Sabrina Harman and her colleagues had no training in interrogation and had not even been trained in the Geneva convention they were tasked with helping break down prisoners. On her first night at the Abu Ghraib prison, Harman had a foreboding feeling. She wrote to her roommate back in the United States, saying: I have a bad feeling about this place. I want to leave as soon as possible!The Abuse Of Detainees At Abu GhraibAs Sabrina Harman told NBC in 2004, she and her colleagues were brought Iraqi detainees by Army intelligence officers, CIA operatives, or by contractors. Though the soldiers of the 372nd had been trained for combat, not as prison guards, their job was to get the men talking. They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed, Harman explained. The job of the [military police] was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk.Public DomainSabrina Harman with the body of a detainee named Manadel al-Jamadi. Though smiling, Harman was disturbed that al-Jamadis death had been described as a heart attack, and took photos of his other injuries.Upon their arrival, Harman and her colleagues were bewildered by what they saw. The detainees at Abu Ghraib were stripped naked, put in stress positions, forced to exercise or stand on boxes, and placed in humiliating situations, like with womens underwear their heads. Prisoners who cooperated were allowed things like cigarettes or hot food. Uncooperative prisoners were deprived of food, sleep, clothing, and even their mattresses.In the beginning, Sabrina Harman recalled to the New Yorker, you see somebody naked and you see underwear on their head and youre like, Oh, thats pretty bad I cant believe I just saw that. And then you go to bed and you come back the next day and you see something worse. Well, it seems like the day before wasnt so bad.Harman and her colleagues did not invent the abuse at Abu Ghraib, but they did participate in it. And they photographed it. When Harman was told about a prisoner whod died of a heart attack, she went to see the body, and noticed injuries which suggested that the prisoner had been beaten.There was no way he died of a heart attack because of all the cuts and blood coming out of his nose, Harman later stated in the documentary Standard Operating Procedure (2008). She took photos, Harman continued, to prove to anybody who looked at this guy This guy did not die of a heart attack. Look at all these other existing injuries that they tried to cover up.But while Harman expressed horror about the death of the detainee, she also participated in the abuse of other prisoners. Ultimately, she would be accused of photographing a corpse and posing for a picture with it, jumping on prisoners as they lay in a pile, writing rapeist on a prisoners leg, and with attaching wires to a prisoners hands while he stood on a box with his head covered. Harman told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box, and a photograph of the hooded prisoner, nicknamed Gilligan, by the soldiers, became one of the most infamous from Abu Ghraib. Public DomainThe prisoner nicknamed Gilligan, who Harman and others perched on a box. They told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off. Indeed, Harman appeared in a number of photographs from Abu Ghraib. In one of the most infamous images, she smiles and gives a thumbs up while posing behind a pile of naked prisoners with hoods over their heads. In another, she gives a thumbs-up in front of a detainee who had been seemingly bitten by a dog. But while Harman looks jovial in the pictures, she had begun to realize that what she and the others was doing was wrong. At first I thought it was funny, but these people are going too far, Harman wrote to her roommate. I cant handle whats going on. I cant get it out of my head [I]ts awful. I thought I could handle anything, but I was wrong.Then, in 2004, photos that Harman and others had taken at Abu Ghraib came to light.Sabrina Harmans Punishment For What Happened At Abu GhraibPublic DomainSabrina Harman giving the thumbs up while treating a prisoner, who was seemingly bitten by a dog.Rumors of what was happening at Abu Ghraib swirled throughout 2003, and in January 2004, the Army assigned Major General Antonio M. Taguba to investigate. Taguba found that numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees and that this systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force.Then, that, April, the CBS program 60 Minutes II revealed the abuse at Abu Ghraib. The network published photos which showed the abuse of detainees, as well as the grinning faces of U.S. service members including Sabrina Harman. The scandal outraged the world, especially since the photos showed clear violations of the Geneva Convention. Though the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was indicative of the larger U.S. policy of enhanced interrogation, U.S. president George W. Bush claimed that the abuse had been perpetrated by just a few individuals. And in the end, just seven reservists who had worked at Abu Ghraib including Harman faced charges for the abuse of detainees at the prison.Harman faced charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, and maltreatment of subordinates, for which she could have spent five years in prison. In the end, Harman was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, four counts of maltreating detainees, and one count of dereliction of duty, and sentenced to six months in military prison. As a soldier and military police officer, I failed my duties and failed my mission to protect and defend, Harman stated after her sentencing, according to The New York Times. I not only let down the people in Iraq, but I let down every single soldier that serves today.She continued: My actions potentially caused an increased hatred and insurgency toward the United States, putting soldiers and civilians at greater risk. I take full responsibility for my actions The decisions I made were mine and mine alone.Sabrina Harman was one of a handful of soldiers who served time for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Next, read about William Calley, the only soldier charged for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. And then learn about the capture of Saddam Hussein.The post Sabrina Harman, The Army Reservist Who Became Infamous During The Abu Ghraib Scandal appeared first on All That's Interesting.

North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy Stock PhotoAn Italian polymath, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, engineer, scientist, architect, and inventor.Most people who view the 15th-century red chalk drawing known as Holy Child might admire its artistry. Others may wonder about its creator, believed to be Leonardo da Vinci. But a group of scientists, working on the assumption that the painting was indeed one of da Vincis works, saw a chance to extract the Italian Renaissance masters DNA. Now, they believe that they were successful but numerous hurdles still remain. For one, scientists arent entirely sure who created the Holy Child. For another, more concrete samples of da Vincis DNA have proven difficult to pin down.The Holy Child And The Quest To Find Leonardo Da Vincis DNAAccording to a new (but as-of-yet not peer-reviewed) study published in the preprint database bioRxiv, scientists began their search for Leonardo da Vincis DNA by gently swabbing the 15th-century sketch known as the Holy Child. From this, they extracted a small sample of genetic material. Public DomainThe Holy Child sketch, which has been attributed to Leonardo da VInci.The sample was extremely promising. Scientists were able to identify a Y-chromosome DNA sequence that belongs to a haplogroup known as E1b1b. This genetic sequence is common in the Tuscany region, where da Vinci is from, and was likely carried by his family. Whats more, the sample also had similarities to another genetic sample taken from a letter written by a distant cousin of da Vinci.As such, the genetic findings seem very promising. Scientists are hopeful to use such techniques to authenticate other artistic works of unknown or disputed origin, and they hope to specifically study da Vincis DNA in the hopes of better understanding what made him so gifted.Theres just one problem: Its been difficult to definitively identify Leonardo da Vincis DNA. Even the sample of genetic material extracted from the Holy Child could belong to someone else entirely. The Challenges Of Verifying Da Vincis DNAPublic DomainA portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. One main problem facing the scientists working to identify Leonardo da Vincis DNA is that his genetic material has been very difficult to find. His original burial place in France was destroyed during the French Revolution. Not only are da Vincis remains now mixed with others, but scientists have been denied access to them. Scientists also dont know where his mother was buried, and they have not been allowed to enter the tomb of his father. Theres da Vincis artwork, but scientists are forbidden from testing most of the pieces, and others have not yielded any DNA samples. Whats more, the artist behind the Holy Child is unknown. Its possible that da Vinci did not sketch it himself, but rather that one of his students completed it. The student could have easily been from the same region as da Vinci, and thus had the E1b1b genetic sequence found in Tuscany.But despite the difficulties, scientists arent giving up in their endeavor to identify da Vincis DNA. Theyve begun examining bones from a da Vinci family vault, testing the DNA of a living da Vinci descendant, and running tests on a lock of hair that was once allegedly trimmed from da Vincis beard. There are also letters written by da Vinci relatives that may contain family DNA, as well as other da Vinci works that could hold the artists DNA. As such, challenges still remain. Scientists dont have a definitive sample of Leonardo da Vincis DNA, which makes it difficult to compare samples found elsewhere. However, as they continue to examine his work and letters written by his relatives perhaps theyll be able to bring together pieces of a larger genetic puzzle. And maybe, someday, this puzzle will provide new insight into Leonardo da Vincis incredible genius.After reading about the possible extraction of Leonardo da Vincis DNA from a 15th-century sketch, discover the impressive stories behind some of the smartest people in the world. Or, see how these Leonardo da Vinci inventions changed the course of human history.The post Scientists May Have Extracted Leonardo Da Vincis DNA From A Renaissance Sketch appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Roblox has announced that all static and classic face designs must be converted into animated dynamic heads or risk being removed from players' inventories for good, all in the name of supporting "self-expression." Starting today, all new head designs must adhere to the conditions of a dynamic head that allow for animation, and a five-week deadline has been given for asset sellers to convert their classic faces. Later this year, Roblox will give creators a final chance to convert any non-compliant heads, and if they don't, they'll be stripped from your inventory.Read the full story on PCGamesN: Roblox is killing off classic heads for good, and it's not going down well

Capcom's big performance-driven Monster Hunter Wilds update is here, and early signs are actually better than I expected. We're just a month away from the Capcom RPG's one-year anniversary, and with all of the planned post-launch creature rollouts now live, the next big question is when the almost-inevitable 'Master Rank' expansion will rear its head. Yet for many, myself included, framerate drops, inconsistencies, and stuttering have continued to put a dampener on what is otherwise Monster Hunter's strongest-ever base game experience. The good news is that the new Wilds patch appears to actually be working, and it feels like a light at the end of the tunnel.Read the full story on PCGamesN: The new Monster Hunter Wilds update is way better than I was expecting, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

Highguard is, in many ways, my most-anticipated game of January. Its distinct lack of post-reveal marketing intrigued me, and the idea of a high fantasy extraction FPS game certainly feels very Lauren. It didn't exactly wow me at The Game Awards, however, feeling somewhat like a chimera of the myriad shooters we've seen release over the past few years. The response to its launch has been equally lukewarm, and the internet generally appears divided. While Steam says that 37% of players have left a positive review, if you filter by playtime (we looked at reviews that had logged more than five hours in-game), that number soars to 78% positive - a marked difference from what Steam initially suggests.Read the full story on PCGamesN: Larian boss is sick of players "shi***ng" on new games, and it feels like he's talking about Highguard

If you've ever wondered what Jamie Oliver's diet looks like, look no further. Here's a list of foods he eats at home with his family, and after a night out.

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High-quality sound is desirable for TV and music, but soundbars are expensive. However, there are cheaper options that audiophiles say can do the job.

Les nouvelles sont rares au sujet de Judas, le prochain projet du crateur de BioShock. Des informations toutes fraches viennent cependant de paratre, et devraient rendre les fans encore plus impatients.