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these "senior rights holders" dominated by corporations and agricultural concerns are not obliged to conserve water.
• Nobody knows how much water they actually use, though it amounts to trillions of gallons each year, according to a review of their own reports by The Associated Press. Together, they hold more than half the rights to rivers and streams in California.
• The AP found the state's system is based on self-reported, incomplete records riddled with errors and years out of date; some appear to be using far less water than records would indicate.
• "We really don't know how much water they've actually diverted," said Bob Rinker, a manager in the State Water Resources Control Board's water rights division.
• ___

• ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigeria's military has located nearly 300 school girls abducted by Islamic extremists but fears using force to try to free them could get them killed, the country's chief of defense said Monday.
• Air Marshal Alex Badeh told demonstrators supporting the much criticized military that Nigerian troops can save the girls. But he added, "we can't go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back."
• He spoke to thousands of demonstrators who marched to Defense Ministry headquarters in Abuja, the capital. Many were brought in on buses, indicating it was an organized event.
• Asked by reporters where they had found the girls, Badeh refused to elaborate.
• "We want our girls back. I can tell you we can do it. Our military can do it. But where they are held, can we go with force?" he asked the crowd.
• ___

• Pope Francis says his plans to meet with a group of sex abuse victims at the Vatican is part of an effort to "go forward" with "zero tolerance" in confronting and preventing clergy abuse. But the head of a U.S. victims' group has dismissed the upcoming session as "another gesture, another public relations coup" that could prove meaningless.

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