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Boats carrying hundreds of refugees, mainly from Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority, have been rescued off Indonesia's Aceh province. Many require medical help, The Associated Press reports.

"We received a report from fishermen this morning that there were boat people stranded," Aceh provincial rescue chief Budiawan told Agence France-Presse news agency on Sunday. "We dispatched teams there and evacuated 469 migrants who are Rohingya from Myanmar and Bangladeshis. So far, all of them are safe," he added.

According to AP:

"Of the four vessels that arrived, three had apparently been abandoned by the smugglers and the other ran out of fuel, he said.

"Most of the migrants were men, but there also were 98 women and 51 children, officials said, adding that many were sick and weak."

"'We had nothing to eat,' said Rashid Ahmed, a 43-year-old Rohingya man who was on one of the boats. He said he left Myanmar's troubled state of Rakhine with his eldest son three months ago."

Al-Jazeera reports:

"Rohingya Muslims have for decades suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination in Myanmar.

"Attacks on the religious minority by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked one of the biggest exoduses of boat people since the Vietnam War, sending 100,000 people fleeing, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which has monitored the movements of Rohingya for more than a decade.

"Lewa confirmed that nearly 500 Rohingya landed in Indonesia early Sunday, with some apparently weak due to lack of food and water."

Rohingya Muslims

Indonesia

Bangladesh

Myanmar

When Hillary Clinton's campaign was looking for a place for her to make an announcement this week about immigration policy, it chose Rancho High School in Las Vegas.

Clinton visited this school in 2007, when she was running for president the first time. Barack Obama visited the campus twice during that campaign season. The backdrop wasn't a coincidence.

Rancho High School's population is 70 percent Hispanic, and it has a proud history of political involvement.

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Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks with student Betsaida Frausto on May 5 at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. Clinton said that any immigration reform would need to include a path to "full and equal citizenship." Ethan Miller/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks with student Betsaida Frausto on May 5 at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. Clinton said that any immigration reform would need to include a path to "full and equal citizenship."

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Right now, two former students are competing for a congressional seat. Others serve in the Nevada State Legislature. One of the teachers, Isaac Barrone, is on the North Las Vegas City Council.

"I don't think it's out of character to say that a school — Rancho High School — it's kind of the pulse and the center of the Latino community," Barrone says.

Barrone is an advisor to the school's largest and most socially engaged club, the Hispanic Student Union. Teacher Reuben DeSilva is the other advisor.

"There's symbolism at this high school," DeSilva says. "You come to Rancho High School, you are actually showing that you care about the community."

As classes let out on a recent afternoon, teenagers fill the hallways. The student body is remarkably diverse. Only about 10 percent of students are white, and two-thirds of those on campus are classified as economically disadvantaged.

Fewer than half go on to college. Betsaida Frausto, a junior with a GPA in the stratosphere, plans to be among those who do.

It's All Politics

Clinton Charms DREAMers On Immigration

"It is special," Frauster says. "It's amazing, in my experience. If I had to choose to go to another school and Rancho was an impossibility, I don't know what I'd do."

Frausto is what's known as a DREAMer. She came to the country illegally as a child, but she dreams of going to Yale and becoming a doctor. First, she hopes to be elected treasurer of the Hispanic Student Union.

When local politicians need people to knock on doors around election time, they turn to the students in the club. Frausto volunteered for a congressional campaign last fall.

"We canvassed to get our voice out, to allow others to hear our story and make sure people know that voting is the way to go," she says.

DeSilva says he's amazed at how engaged the students are.

"They could say no," he says. "It's usually on a Saturday, but they'll go out there. Even to me, it baffles me sometimes. I'm like, 'You know, you could be sleeping in,' and they'll knock on doors and work. It's pretty astounding to see just how willing they are to actually get out."

Another politician visit helped put Rancho High School on the map. In October 2010, Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle visited Rancho's Hispanic Student Union and told the kids they looked Asian. Some were recording on their cell phones.

"I don't know that all of you are Latino," Angle said. "Some of you look a little more Asian to me."

The statement went viral.

Club member Brandon Willis, who is African-American, says he loves the Hispanic Student Union.

"Everyone's like, 'Why are you in HSU? You're not even Hispanic," Willis says. "Why would I not be in HSU? It's awesome!"

Willis wants to be president of the United States, and he's serious about it. He says his teachers at Rancho High School convinced him it's possible.

"I want to change the world for the better," he says. "The way I see it, to change the system, you have to be part of the system and then change it from the inside."

Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his two sons to three years in prison today in a retrial of the corruption case brought against them in the wake of the 2011 'Arab Spring' uprising that deposed the long-time ruler.

"The ruling of the court is three years in prison without parole for Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Gamal Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Alaa Mohamed Hosni Mubarak," Judge Hassan Hassanein announced on Saturday, according to Reuters.

It is the latest in a long and winding judicial road for Mubarak.

Last year, an Egyptian court overturned Mubarak's murder conviction stemming from his alleged order to kill hundreds of anti-government protesters in the run-up to his ouster.

The case decided on Saturday refers to as the "presidential palaces" affair and relates to charges that Mubarak and his sons embezzled millions in state funds over the period of the leader's 30-year rule.

As Reuters explains:

"Last May, Mubarak was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of diverting public funds earmarked to renovate presidential palaces and using the money to upgrade family properties. His two sons were given four-year jail terms in the same case.

"In January, Egypt's high court overturned the convictions, and the case went back to court for retrial."

According to The Associated Press, the verdict includes a $16.3 million fine to be paid by the three men and calls for the return of the $2.7 million they embezzled.

A lawyer for Mubarak says the judge's decision can be appealed, according to AP.

Arab Spring

Hosni Mubarak

Egypt

Pregnant mothers are often reminded that they're eating for two. But 17-year-old Gladys barely has enough food for one.

Gladys, who is pregnant with her first child, lives in Malawi, a country with widespread poverty and malnutrition. In 2012, 78 out of every 1,000 children died before they turned 5, according to UNICEF. Nearly half of all children are stunted. That means their height is below the fifth percentile for their age, and they are prone to chronic diseases and tend to struggle in school.

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Time for a peanut butter break. Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter

Time for a peanut butter break.

Courtesy of Project Peanut Butter

Now one pediatrician is tackling the problem by focusing not just on the children but young mothers like Gladys. And he's using peanut butter as his tool.

The problem is, malnutrition often starts in the womb. "A third of stunting occurs before birth and there's nothing you can do once the child is born," says Dr. Mark Manary, a pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis and the founder of Project Peanut Butter.

His Malawi-based organization uses a locally produced high-calorie, nutrient-rich peanut paste called chiponde to treat malnourished children in Malawi, Sierra Leone and Ghana. It's one of many therapeutic foods aid agencies used to treat severe malnutrition.

Manary's latest study, called Mamachiponde, tests how effective the product is in helping pregnant adolescents in southern Malawi deliver a healthy baby. An estimated 1 in 36 women in the country dies from pregnancy complications. Young teenagers are the most vulnerable, he says: "Many are still girls. The body hasn't had correct nutrition to develop completely."

Since last spring, Manary and his team has worked with 15 clinics in Malawi to enroll pregnant women, 16 and up, whose mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is less than 23 centimeters, or 9 inches. That's a sign of malnutrition.

The mothers-to-be are given a two-week supply of one of three treatments. One group gets corn soy blend fortified with folic acid and iron, the Malawi standard supplement for pregnant women. Another gets the corn blend plus prenatal vitamins. The third group receives chiponde, which has twice the recommended intake of proteins, vitamins and other nutrients.

When the mothers run out of the food, they return to the clinic for another two-week supply. They keep getting treatment until their arm circumference is more than 23 centimeters. The team then monitors the mother until she gives birth. Ideally, she would deliver a baby heavier than 5.5 pounds — the World Health Organization cutoff for low birth weight. But Dr. Peggy Papathakis, the study's director on ground, says she'd like to see a newborn be at least 3,000 grams, or 6.6 pounds.

In late April, Gladys, the 17-year-old, gave birth to her first child. The baby girl clocked in at 5.7 pounds after having been part of the study for roughly a month. The mother reported that she ate all the food she'd been given, but Papathakis remains doubtful.

Gladys lives in a small home with her husband, mother and seven younger siblings. "Ideally our foods are for the pregnant woman," says Papathakis, a nutritionist from California Polytechnic State University. "But you can imagine, there is no way she is going to keep that for herself."

So nurses often coach the pregnant young mothers on how to explain to their families that the food is important for the mother and the baby.

More than 1,000 women and teens have been enrolled in the study, and researchers expect to test a total of 2,000 girls by 2016 with the help of a $50,000 grant from The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science. It explores a field that hasn't been studied enough, says Mireille Mclean, the institute's associate director and one of the judges. "Right now we consider that an adolescent pregnant woman has the same needs as an adult woman but it's probably not true."

Mclean says she hope the study will help generate nutritional guidelines that are geared toward teen mothers.

The Mamachiponde study is a good start to a complex issue, says Dr. David Sanders, a pediatrician at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, who isn't involved in the study. But he says that the key to helping young women in Malawi is preventing unwanted pregnancy.

Sanders applauds Manary for producing the chiponde in Malawi -- that's good for the economy — rather than flying in therapeutic food from outside "You have to in the long run improve people's livelihoods," he says. "We can do that in part by ensuring that these kind of interventions stimulate local productivity and put more money in the pockets of poor peasants."

Sanders also warns against turning a food problem into a medical one by making people think they are getting medicine. It's more helpful, he says, to clearly tell the mother that their children are eating peanuts. That way the mothers will know that the key to stopping malnutrition isn't some mysterious medicine but something that they can get locally and add into their diets.

For now, Papathakis says she's happy to just be helping a group of women too often neglected: "You don't get a healthy infant unless you have a healthy mother."

peanuts

pregnant teenagers

malawi