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Campaigners accuse British zoo of animal cruelty for offering £15 tug of war with lion

However, the zoo insists the sport is the ideal way to keep its male tiger, Dragan, and male lion, Jasiri, fit and healthy.

Benjamin Mee, chief executive of Dartmoor Zoo, said the activity is good for big cats because it mimics real life in the wild.

“People are making a fuss about nothing,” Mr Mee, 53, said. “I think this is 100 per cent the right thing to be doing; the lion loves it. One of the problems people have potentially raised is the lion doesn't get fed unless he wins, but obviously that isn't the case.”

“In the wild the level of force a lion puts its whole physique through is considerably more than we can replicate.”

Jason Leake, 31, a lorry driver from Torquay, Devon, who tried the tug of war, said: “The lion was locked away when they set it all up, we had a safety briefing and they told us what to do.They told us to stay on the left side of the rope and to do whatever the instructor told us.

“We had to stop pulling when the lion had the meat and then pull again when he let go. The power was mental. We had no chance. Apparently a rugby team had come in and they had the same result.”

Patients, health data experts accuse Facebook of exposing personal info

A group of patients and health data experts is accusing Facebook of misleading users about how their personal health information can be manipulated and exposed without patients' explicit permission.

In a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint released publicly on Tuesday, the group alleges that Facebook prompts its users to join online medical support groups under the guise that they are "private" – but does not make clear that users could expose their health data when they join those groups.

"I think the highest-level deception is that they call [these medical support groups] safe," Fred Trotter, a security researcher and one of the complainants, told The Hill. He pointed out that Facebook executives, including Facebook CEO Mark ZuckerbergMark Elliot ZuckerbergHillicon Valley: Kremlin seeks more control over Russian internet | Huawei CEO denies links to Chinese government | Facebook accused of exposing health data | Harris calls for paper ballots | Twitter updates ad rules ahead of EU election Patients, health data experts accuse Facebook of exposing personal info Hillicon Valley: New York says goodbye to Amazon's HQ2 | AOC reacts: 'Anything is possible' | FTC pushes for record Facebook fine | Cyber threats to utilities on the rise MORE, have touted the medical support groups as an opportunity for patients to support one another, while failing to disclose that the group members' data could be mined for ad targeting and harassment.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr.Frank Joseph PalloneOvernight Health Care — Presented by National Taxpayers Union — Trump, Dems open drug price talks | FDA warns against infusing young people's blood | Facebook under scrutiny over health data | Harris says Medicare for all isn't socialism Patients, health data experts accuse Facebook of exposing personal info High stakes as Trump, Dems open drug price talks MORE (D-N.J.) and Rep. Jan SchakowskyJanice (Jan) Danoff SchakowskyOvernight Health Care — Presented by National Taxpayers Union — Trump, Dems open drug price talks | FDA warns against infusing young people's blood | Facebook under scrutiny over health data | Harris says Medicare for all isn't socialism Hillicon Valley: Kremlin seeks more control over Russian internet | Huawei CEO denies links to Chinese government | Facebook accused of exposing health data | Harris calls for paper ballots | Twitter updates ad rules ahead of EU election Patients, health data experts accuse Facebook of exposing personal info MORE (D-Ill.), who chairs the commerce subcommittee, in response to the FTC complaint requested a staff briefing from Facebook.

Pallone and Schawkosky in a letter to Zuckerberg wrote that the social network "potentially misled Facebook users" into sharing personal health information, raising "concerns about Facebook's privacy policies and practices."

A Facebook spokesperson in a statement to The Hill said the company looks forward to “briefing the committee about how these products work.”

“It's intentionally clear to people that when they join any group on Facebook, other members of that group can see that they are a part of that community, and can see the posts they choose to share with that community,” the spokesperson said.

The lawmakers' request for a briefing comes as lawmakers gear up to put together a federal privacy bill, an endeavor that has garnered interest on both sides of the aisle. 

The FTC complaint claims Facebook is not transparent about how users are targeted to join certain medical support groups and how their health data could be accessed once they join those groups. 

For example, if Facebook's algorithms suspect that a user is pregnant, the platform may prompt that user to join a pregnancy support group. Though many of those groups are advertised by their administrators as "private," "anonymous" or "confidential," the data shared in those groups can be shared with third parties. 

In order to illustrate their point, the health experts in April 2018 used an outside app to download the names of all 10,000 users who were part of a group for people who had tested positive for the BRCA gene that causes an increased risk for breast cancer. 

The experts claim that those membership lists could be used by any number of outside groups, including advertisers or more nefarious groups.   

Facebook now restricts member list visibility, barring nonmembers from seeing who is in certain groups. But evidence shows there are instances in which third parties set up fake accounts to join those groups in order to scrape data from its members, Trotter told The Hill.  

"We did see ... an influx of user accounts applying to the membership of health care closed groups that looked fake," Trotter said.  

There have been multiple instances in which members of certain Facebook medical support groups have been targeted with disinformation or even harassment based on their medical condition.

Some anti-vaccination activists have targeted pregnant women on Facebook with messages about the effects of vaccinating their children, and third parties offered mental health treatments to addiction support group members.

"Sharing of privately posted personal health information violates the law, but this serious problem with Facebook’s privacy implementation also presents an ongoing risk of death or serious injury to Facebook users," the FTC complaint reads. "Facebook has ignored our requests to fix the specific issues we have identified to the company, and denies publicly that any problem exists." 

"All of this represents unfair, deceptive and misleading interactions between Facebook and its users in violation of the FTC Act," it adds.

The complaint emerges as the FTC is reportedly considering a major fine against Facebook for its handling of user privacy.

Updated at 5:56 p.m.

Parents accuse Salt Lake City School District of recommending an elementary for closure that has high population of minority and homeless students

Nearly every parent and teacher who went up to the podium Tuesday night offered a different statistic about the students at Bennion Elementary School in downtown Salt Lake City.

More than a quarter are homeless. At least 30 children live at the nearby women’s shelter for domestic violence victims a few blocks away. Nearly 65 percent are minorities.

Their point: The recent recommendation to close the school feels targeted.

“I don’t think that’s right or fair,” Margaret Blackbear, 37, told the Salt Lake City board of education.

Blackbear’s son, Robert, twirled around the microphone as she spoke, grabbing her hand and flipping his long braided hair, which is part of the family’s American Indian heritage. He and his brother Izaak, both 6, go to the elementary school. Blackbear said they feel safe being around other minority students who respect them.

“That’s right,” Robert shouted.

The elementary — one of the most diverse in the city and the state — was suggested for closure by the district’s building utilization committee. That group has spent the past six months looking at all of the schools in the city to determine where resources are being wasted with empty classrooms, too many teachers and too few students.

Almost every elementary in the district has seen its population steadily decline. It’s happened the fastest at Bennion.

Currently, the school has 213 students. That’s 387 below its capacity and the smallest enrollment in the district. Two years ago, it had 48 more.

“The declining enrollment is more pronounced at our elementary schools than it is anywhere else in the district,” said Superintendent Lexi Cunningham, pointing to a graph that showed the district has lost more than 1,000 K-6 students in four years.

The issue points to a bigger demographic shift in Salt Lake City, where either families with young children are moving out of downtown or people downtown have fewer young kids. Regardless, the district has to react, Cunningham added.

After hearing the committee’s report and the recommendation to close Bennion, the school board voted to review boundaries for all of its 26 traditional elementaries, hold a public hearing and consider its options again in May.

“We’re not making a decision tonight,” said board President Tiffany Sandberg. Board members Heather Bennett and Nate Salazar added that before a final call is made, they’d like to see studies on what impact closing a school has on at-risk students.

While many in the audience of about 40 people cheered at the announcement, a few suggested it was just putting off what would eventually happen.

Blackbear said she still believes “they’re taking our school away from us.” She went to Bennion as a child. Her dad went there. Her grandma taught there. And now her sons go there.

“It’s a community school,” she said. “The teachers there remember me.”

The elementary, at 429 S. 800 East, has long served a unique population. Many parents choose to go there because the school offers support programs. There are behavioral teams to work with kids who have been traumatized. There are teachers who know the ins and outs of protective orders. More than 98 percent of the students get free or reduced-price meals. It’s a Title 1 school, meaning it receives supplemental federal funding due to its proportion of low-income families.

“I just don’t want them to lose their school,” said Jodie Eckley, 39, holding tight to her 4-year-old daughter who was shouting “mama” to the board members. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Eckley, a single mother of three, brought her kids to Bennion about two years ago when she sought services at the women’s shelter for domestic violence victims. After finding support there, she was able to rent an apartment next door to the school and now watches her two sons, 6 and 10, walk to class each morning.

She broke down in tears before she could finish telling the board what she thought.

Parents passed around a petition to sign. Teachers talked about how much they loved their students. Most chastised the board for not being more transparent.

Laura Bergen, a third-grade teacher at the elementary, said she had no idea about the discussion to close the school until two weeks ago. Curtis Lee Dorsey-Maestas, an alumnus, said many in the community hadn’t heard about it until after this meeting was scheduled last week.

While board members assured that the recommendation to close the school had nothing to do with its demographics, it did have to do, at least in part, with test scores. Bennion was named one of the worst-performing in Utah this year, Cunningham said, and given three years to improve under the state’s turnaround program.

It had an overall proficiency score among students of 30 percent in language arts, 26 percent in math, 32 percent in science. Closing it could shuffle kids to better performing schools while absolving the district of requirements to do better.

Already this year, Granite School District’s board of education voted to close an elementary rather than face further sanctions for low end-of-year scores and grades. That undoubtably caused concern for Salt Lake City parents Tuesday, who whispered about how “this isn’t fair” and “I don’t want the same thing to happen here.”

“In the end, the community just doesn’t feel informed,” said Carrie Chalverus, who has a second- and fifth-grader at Bennion. “But we still have time.”

After Bennion, the next smallest elementary school in the district is Washington, which has 291 students — 62 percent of whom are minorities and 6 percent homeless. Ensign, Franklin, Parkview and Riley were also on the declining list. Highland Park, not included, has the highest elementary enrollment in Salt Lake City at 654 students.

Bennion Elementary School was named for M. Lynn Bennion. He served as superintendent for the district for 24 years starting in 1944 and through the civil rights movement. During that time, he responded to several marches led by students and parents of color and promised to include make the schools more equitable and diverse.