An eclectic newsletter for YOU to blog-post your comments on news that are happening in current events, entrepreneurial businesses, online shopping guide, and everything else you seek for your intellectual enjoyment! See how the news correlate to one another to make critical assessments on your own.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Baghdad in 2008.
WASHINGTON -- In the run-up to the war in Iraq,
neoconservative hawks in and out of the Bush administration promised
that the U.S. invasion would quickly transform that country into a
strong ally, a model Arab democracy and a major oil producer that would
lower world prices, even while paying for its own reconstruction.
"A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example
of freedom for other nations in the region," President George W. Bush told a crowd at the American Enterprise Institute in 2003, a few weeks before he launched the attack.
Ten bloody and grueling years later, Iraq is finally emerging from
its ruins and establishing itself as a geopolitical player in the Middle
East -- but not the way the neocons envisioned.
Though technically a democracy, Iraq's floundering government has
degenerated into a tottering quasi-dictatorship. The costs of the war (more than $800 billion) and reconstruction (more than $50 billion) have been staggeringly high. And while Iraq is finally producing oil at pre-war levels, it is trying its best to drive oil prices as high as possible.
Most disturbing to many American foreign policy experts, however, is
Iraq's extremely close relationship with Iran. Today, the country that
was formerly Iran's deadliest rival is its strongest ally.
Photo credit: AP | Afghan men inspect a damaged wedding hall that was the site of a bombing in Samangan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan. (July, 14, 2012)
KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up among guests
at a wedding hall Saturday in northern Afghanistan, killing 23 people
including a prominent ex-Uzbek warlord turned lawmaker who was the
father of the bride.
The attack was the latest to target
top figures from the country's minority groups and dealt a blow to
efforts to unify ethnic factions amid growing concerns that the country
could descend into civil war after foreign combat troops withdraw in
2014.
Ahmad Khan Samangani, an ethnic Uzbek
who commanded forces fighting the Soviets in the 1980s and later became a
member of parliament, was welcoming guests to his daughter's wedding
Saturday morning when the blast ripped through the building in Aybak,
the capital of Samangan province.
Three Afghan security force
officials also were among those killed. About 60 other people, including
government officials, were wounded in the attack, which left the
wedding hall's black-and-white tile floor covered with shattered glass,
blood and other debris.
ConAgra says that a lawsuit claiming its Hebrew National products aren't kosher is without merit.
(ConAgra screenshot)
ConAgra Foods Inc.,
the company that makes Hebrew National hot dogs and other meats, said a
lawsuit questioning the product’s kosher status is “without merit.”
The
complaint, filed in federal court in Minnesota, claims that Hebrew
National charges high prices for a designation that it doesn’t deserve.
The
suit, filed by 11 consumers and seeking class action status, accuses
ConAgra of using dirty animals for its meats. Kosher standards demand
healthy and clean livestock.
Kathleen Finch, senior vice president and general manager of HGTV.
(June 18, 2012)
From bait-and-switch marriage proposals to wig-pulling,
cocktail-tossing catfights, it's safe to say we've grown accustomed to
absurd contrivance and scripting in "reality" television. But who would
expect such dramatic puppet-mastering on HGTV?
Apparently
we all should have. Earlier this month on the website Hooked on Houses,
former "House Hunters" participant Bobi Jensen called the show a sham.
Jensen writes that the HGTV producers found her family's plan to turn
their current home into a rental property
"boring and overdone," and therefore crafted a narrative about their
desperation for more square footage. What's more, producers only agreed
to feature Jensen's family after they had bought their new house,
forcing them to "tour" friends' houses that weren't even for sale to
accommodate the trope of "Which one will they choose?"
You've seen our stunning planet, but never quite like this.
(Photo: Electro-L Satellite)
Sure, you may have seen NASA’s epic photograph
of the spinning blue marble we call home. But unlike that snapshot,
which was actually a composite image, a new 121-megapixel photograph
making the rounds is a single-shot.
It was snapped by a new Russian weather satellite, the Electro-L, reports Gizmodo.
Israel has responded to the failure of the latest nuclear talks between world powers and Iran with a familiar refrain: sanctions must be ramped up while the clock ticks down toward possible military action.
Jordan says a Syrian air force pilot has flown his Mig-21 fighter jet
to the kingdom and asked for political asylum, the Associated Press
reports.
"The jetfighter landed at 10:45am and the government is
currently considering the pilot's request," Jordanian Minister of State
for Information Samih al-Maaytah told The Jordan Times Thursday without elaborating further.
Reuters quotes al-Maaytah as saying the "is being debriefed at the moment."
Reuters says Syrian state television identified the pilot as Col. Hassan Hamada, reporting that he was on a training mission near the border when communications with the plane were lost.
HONOLULU
–
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has reached a deal to buy 98% of the island of Lanai from its current owner, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said Wednesday.
For months now, New York officials have been highlighting how the city has regained all the jobs lost during the long recession and then some. But by several measures, the city’s recovery has left black New Yorkers behind.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times
Kevin Starkes, right, who lives in the South Bronx,
said he had been trying for about 10 weeks to find work as an
accountant.
More than half of all of African-Americans and other non-Hispanic blacks
in the city who were old enough to work had no job at all this year,
according to an analysis of employment data compiled by the federal Labor Department.
And when black New Yorkers lose their jobs, they spend a full year, on
average, trying to find new jobs — far longer than New Yorkers of other
races.
Nationally, the employment outlook for blacks has begun to brighten:
there were about one million more black Americans with jobs in May than
there were a year earlier, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But that is not the case in New York City, where the decline in
employment since the recession began here, in 2008, has been much
steeper for blacks than for white or Hispanic residents, said James
Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research group.
So, finally we have it. The Republican "Tax Cut Plan" in all its glory.
Mitt Romney and his Republican colleagues were intent on
putting forth what they thought would be a nice series of tax cuts and
popular, new, simple, reduced tax brackets.
Oops.
This is not actually reducing the burden on middle class families, it is increasing it. A new Joint Economic
Committee Study exposes this sham of a plan. Making President George
W. Bush's tax cuts permanent and further reducing the top rate to 25
percent is truly class warfare, Robin Hood in reverse, stick it to the
middle class. The fact is that to close the so-called loopholes and
get rid of the credits, many of which help the middle class, we are seeing a further redistribution of wealth to the wealthy.
The Romney-Ryan plan would increase taxes on wage earners
who make between $50,000 to $100,000 by $1,300. It would increase taxes
on those who make between $100,000 to $200,000 by $2,600. Another
great idea for taking us back to the Bush-era, on steroids.
If you make between $500,000 and $1 million, you get another nice check for $35,000—go buy a new car
or a big diamond ring. And if you happen to make over a million
dollars, the average redistribution of wealth comes to an unbelievable
$285,000.
Whether it's the solitude you get after a long and busy day or the independence -- you can walk around in your underwear all the time!
-- living alone has
its perks. Some people are perfectly happy to be alone all the time.
But being isolated and feeling lonely may put you at higher risk for
functional
decline and even death, new research finds.
Silly as it sounds, living by yourself carries a small if obvious
danger. When family members and roommates are around, they can intervene
in a medical
emergency. Being on your own means that, well, you're on your own.
Tomorrow, Jamaican strongman Christopher “Dudus” Coke will face a prison
sentence of up to twenty-three years in federal court. As I reported for the magazine in December,
at least seventy-three civilians died in the process of getting Coke
out of Jamaica and into U.S. custody. At the time, the Jamaican security
forces claimed that most of the dead were gunmen who died defending
Coke inside the barricaded neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens. But for these
seventy-three supposed gunmen, the security forces only recovered six
guns. Three of the dead were women. One was a U.S. citizen. Most appear
to have been unarmed civilians, rounded up and massacred after the
neighborhood was already under control.
The Centers for Disease Controland Prevention reported Thursday that 23 percent of high school students said they recently smoked marijuana, while 18 percent said they had puffed cigarettes. The survey asked teens about a variety of risky behaviors.
Quentin Tarantino has been a notable film maker when it comes to airing out the uncomfortable realities of race through cinema.
And Tarantino’s recent trailer for his newest film, “Django Unchained,”
is certainly going to punctuate his reputation as an unabashed maker of
film that evokes controversial commentary on how white Hollywood
directors present stories of Black history to mostly White audiences.
If she could figure out how to live in her car, Janet Sparks would.
The 52-year-old makes $11.60 an hour as a
front-of-the-store manager at a Louisiana Walmart and says she struggles
to pay for basic necessities, let alone her $600-a-month rent.
"I'm
giving it all I got, I like what I do, and yet I'm struggling so bad.
This is not what it was when I started," says Sparks, who began working
for America's No. 1 employer and discount store seven years ago.
Sparks
belongs to a loosely knit association of Walmart employees called the
Organization United for Respect at Walmart — OUR Walmart, for short.
They are prodding the giant retailer to provide better wages, affordable
benefits and reasonably reliable schedules for store employees
nationwide. Their campaign comes not only at a time when many low-wage
workers in the U.S.
are struggling to make ends meet, but also as Walmart is rededicating
itself to attracting price-conscious consumers like them — by holding
down its expenses and guaranteeing the lowest prices.
OUR
Walmart is not a labor union and lacks the right to bargain with the
company on workers' behalf. The group receives some financial and technical support
from the nation's largest retail workers union — the United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW), which has tried to organize Walmart workers
in the past.
OUR Walmart claims about 5,000 members who pay monthly dues of $5 each.
Members
learn how to stand up for themselves with store managers and about
their legal protections as workers. They try to recruit fellow
associates at their stores, and local groups hold meetings to discuss
specific grievances. About three dozen members traveled to Walmart's
annual shareholders meeting last week in Bentonville, Ark., to pass out
fliers about their cause.
In the two years
since OUR Walmart's creation, Walmart has twice raised the number of
hours that part-time employees need to qualify for health benefits. Wage
caps begun about six years ago block raises for some longtime employees
in the same jobs.
And some workers say the company's work-scheduling system limits their
hours below what they need to qualify for benefits and produces such
widely varying schedules that it's difficult to take a second job to
make ends meet.
A "Declaration of Respect" that about 100 OUR Walmart members presented to the company last June calls on Walmart to offer affordable health care, create more dependable schedules and pay at least $13 an hour, among other things.
Walmart
says the national average hourly wage for its full-time workers is
$12.40 but declined to say what it is for part-time workers. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.
The purifying waters of Lake Minnetonka have definitely been a
fountain of youth for Prince. Today the 'Purple Rain' star turns 54 and
after all these years he's still got it.
Not only has the soulful legend revolutionized the music world, his
trademark eccentric wardrobe has never failed to turn heads. From
ruffles, to bell bottoms, to baring it all. Who could forget these infamously brief chaps?
Happy Bless Birthday to the 'Prince of Purple Rain'!
On a flat and desolate stretch of Interstate 10 some 50 miles south
of Phoenix, a sheriff's deputy pulls over a green Chevy Tahoe speeding
westbound and carrying three young Hispanic men.
The man behind the wheel produces no driver's license or registration.
The deputy notices $1,000 in cash stuffed in the doorframe -- payment,
he presumes, for completed passage from Mexico. He radios the sheriff's
immigration enforcement team, summoning agents from the U.S. Border
Patrol. Soon, the three men are ushered into the back of a white van
with a federal seal.
This routine traffic stop represents the front end of an increasingly
lucrative commercial enterprise: the business of incarcerating
immigrant detainees, the fastest-growing segment of the American prison
population. The three men loaded into the van offer
fresh profit opportunities for the nation's swiftly expanding private
prison industry, which has in recent years captured the bulk of this
commerce through federal contracts. By filling its cells with
undocumented immigrants caught in the web of increased border security,
the industry has seen its revenues swell at taxpayer expense.
The convergence of the people on the Interstate on this recent
afternoon, as well as the profits that flow from imprisoning immigrants,
are in part the result of concerted efforts by the private prison
industry to tilt immigration detention policies in its favor, a
Huffington Post investigation has shown.
In Washington, the industry's lobbyists have influenced policy to
secure growing numbers of federal inmates in its facilities, while
encouraging Congress to increase funding for detention bedspace. Here in
this southern Arizona community, private prison companies share the
spoils of their business with the local government, effectively giving
area law enforcement an incentive to apprehend as many undocumented immigrants as they can.
This confluence of forces has contributed to a doubling of the ranks
of immigrant detainees, to about 400,000 a year. Nearly half are now
held in private prisons, up from one-fourth a decade ago, according to
the Department of Homeland Security. The two largest for-profit
prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group,
Inc., have more than doubled their revenues from the immigrant
detention business since 2005, according to securities filings.
BAY OF PIGS, Cuba
–
Sitting at a wooden table at his 3-week-old restaurant, Saturnino
Morrejon Ramos surveyed the turquoise water of this inlet on the
Caribbean off Cuba's southern coast.
"I still remember the gunfire," Ramos, 64, said,
referring to the failed, CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles to depose
the regime of Fidel Castro in 1961.
Ramos and
others like him are taking part in a decidedly capitalistic change in
Cuba in which the communist rulers have relaxed state control of the
economy to generate wealth.
Results appear mixed because of high taxes on profits and restrictions
on economic freedoms that could lead to demands for political liberties.
Ramos
is happy about the changes. The tables, chairs and kitchen of the
restaurant atop his house were bought using $5,000 worth of remittances,
or cash that the family gets from relatives in the USA.
"It's
definitely worth paying the taxes to the government because we're
earning more money," he said, admiring both the view and the fish caught
yards away that lay grilled on the plates of diners. "Everyone's
pleased the government has allowed this."
A new theory says that a wave of massive technological change gave life to organized labor -- and another wave took it all away
Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker doesn't like unions, and unions don't like him.
But the most remarkable thing about Walker's relationship to labor isn't
that he thinks unions are worthless -- most Republicans agree -- but that he thinks about them, at all.
Today, unions have been swept into dusty corners of the U.S. workforce,
such as Las Vegas casino
cleaners and New York City hotel staff. For much of the 20th century,
things were different. Almost every person living in the Northeast,
Midwest and California "was in a union himself/herself, had a family
member in a union, or, at least, had a friend or neighbor in a union,"
Rich Yeleson, veteran in the labor movement, writes in The New Republic.
The apogee of the unions was also the apogee of the middle class, when
it commanded more than half of total income. As the union membership rate dropped, middle class share of income fell, too.
So far, 2012 has
been the warmest year the United States has ever seen, with the warmest
spring and the second-warmest May since record-keeping began in 1895,
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on
Thursday.
Temperatures for the past 12
months and the year-to-date have been the warmest on record for the
contiguous United States, NOAA said.
The average temperature for the contiguous 48 states for meteorological spring, which runs from March through May, was 57.1 degrees
F (13.9 C), 5.2 degrees (2.9 C) above the 20th century long-term
average and 2 degrees F (1.1 C) warmer than the previous warmest spring
in 1910.
Former officials say November layoffs at companies that depend on massive government contracts could shake up the election
Hundreds of thousands of Americans could head to the polls in
November with fresh pink slips from firms that do business with the
federal government, potentially upending key races across the country.
If Congress fails to pass a broad debt-reduction package this year
that would reduce the federal debt by $1.2 trillion, around $500 billion
in separate cuts to defense and domestic entitlement budgets would go
into effect Jan. 1. The impact would force government entities like the
Pentagon to cancel contracts, lay off workers and terminate programs, experts of all political stripes agree.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, in a report released Thursday, predicts
the result would be a fresh injection of unemployed Americans into the
still-staggering U.S. economy.
United States Attorney Bill Nettles and Special Agent in Charge
David A. Thomas of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said 19
individuals were arrested today after the return of a 91-count
indictment charging members and associates of the Rock Hell City Nomad
Chapter of the Hells Angels with racketeering and racketeering
conspiracy, narcotics violations, Hobbs Act robbery, money laundering
and firearm violations.
Those arrested were Daniel Eugene Bifield,
aka Diamond Dan (Leesville); Mark William Baker, aka Lightning
(Lancaster); David Channing Oiler, aka Gravel Dave (Lancaster); Bruce
James Long, aka Bruce-Bruce (Columbia); Richard Thrower, aka Little
Mark, Rat (Lancaster); David Pryor, aka Yard Owl (York); James Frederick
Keach Jr., aka Big Fred (Pelion); Frank Enriquez Jr., aka Big Frank
(Rock Hill); Donald Boersma, aka Brooklyn Donnie (Clover); Lisa Ellen
Bifield, aka Lisa Ellen Meyers, Lisa Ellen Stockton (Leesville); Johanna
Looper, aka JoJo (York); Kerry Chitwood (Gastonia, N.C.); Carlos
Hernandez (Charlotte); Ronald Dean Byrum Jr., aka Big Ron (Gastonia);
Trent Allen Brown (Columbia); Bruce Ranson Wilson, aka Diesel (Swansea);
Thomas McManus Plyler, aka Uncle Tom (Rock Hill); Jamie Hobbs Long
(Lancaster); and Somying Anderson, aka Ying (Columbia).
The arrest warrants
were served along with the execution of 23 search warrants in North and
South Carolina. During today’s operation, law enforcement seized
methamphatamine, cocaine, marijuana, pills and 100 firearms, including
two automatic machine guns. Special Agent in Charge David Thomas said,
"The significance of the extensive and long-term investigative efforts
that resulted in the arrests today represent the FBI's continuing
commitment to the dismantling of organized criminal organizations. By
working in a joint environment with federal, state and local
counterparts, we send a clear message that such pervasive criminal
activities will not be tolerated."
Meet the New Jersey Muslims taking on the New York Police Department over its sweeping surveillance program.
"For a number of years, there was a certainly a feeling that people were
being singled out and targeted for scrutiny by law enforcement," Khera
says. "It created a lot of fear and concern in the community, but also a
lot of tremendous anger and frustration. Americans who are simply going
about their daily lives, attending school, running their businesses,
attending their places of worship, and haven't engaged in wrongdoing—and
yet they're being subjected to surveillance by the largest police
department in the country."
Researchers use blood from the mother and
saliva from the father to determine a fetus' entire DNA sequence. If
refined, the technique could provide a risk-free way to screen for
genetic disorders.
When the rumors hit the web that Marvel Studios had given an official green light to a long-discussed Black Panther movie project, fans of the super-hero comic book hero rejoiced universally. Although a breaking report from Latino Review has not been confirmed by the heads of Marvel, it didn’t stop the snowball effect of the spreading news,
with mounds of speculation still piling up. If the rumors do result in a
film, what could this mean for the face of an industry that is lacking
in positive Black images, especially in the realm of comic book
adaptions?
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Black Panther character in 1966, with some saying that Kirby was the one who introduced
the idea to Lee with an early incarnation of the character with the
name “Coal Tiger,” which would have been a terrible choice. Several
accounts from early Marvel employees reveal that Lee and other artists
were aware of race relations within America and wanted to promote balance
in their comics by featuring Black characters. This gracious gesture
has spawned several Black heroes – and villains – over the course of
Marvel’s long tenure in the comic biz.
Watch an episode of Black Panther here:
The story of Black Panther is a fascinating one indeed. Hailing from the African warrior country of Wakanda,
known in the Marvel universe as the most technologically advanced
nation in the world, Black Panther is an exceptional fighter and a
valued scholar. With his birth name being T’Challa,
Black Panther leads Wakanda against foes who seek to rob the secrets of
his country. The nation is also where the fictional metal vibranium is forged, the same material used to fashion Captain America’s shield weapon.
The research, published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry,
pinpoints piperine — the pungent-tasting substance that gives black
pepper its characteristic taste, concluding that piperine also can block
the formation of new fat cells.
A
patient-safety group is warning that, amid numerous reports of severe
eye pain, burns, and chemical injuries linked to the misuse of Clear
Care contact lens solution, Ciba Vision has failed to adequately warn
consumers about potential health hazards related to their product. The
consumer complaints started two years ago and continue today.
Clear Care contains 3 percent hydrogen peroxide, which isn’t normally
used in a contact lens rinse. Unless it’s neutralized in a special Clear
Care lens case, the powerful cleaning and disinfect product “will burn
and sting your eyes,” manufacturer Ciba Vision
now cautions on its website. The problem is that people use the
solution in a conventional flat contact lens case to rinse or soak their
lenses before inserting the lenses into their eyes, rather than using
the special case made by the company that has a built-in neutralizer
ring that takes six hours to work.
Ask Sebastian Thrun what makes him tick, and the inventor and Google
Fellow offers up three favorite themes: big open problems, a desire to
help people and “disrespect for authority.” Thrun, 45, has been aiming
high—and annoying the old guard—for nearly two decades. As a college
student in Germany he dashed off to conferences to present major papers
on machine learning without getting his professor’s permission. Thrun
made the cover of FORBES in 2006 with his talk of creating self-driving
cars that could navigate traffic and follow directions without human
guidance. As the founding head of Google’s advanced-research X Lab,
Thrun helped turn those robocars into reality. After 200,000 miles of
road tests his vehicles are safe enough for Nevada to approve them on
public roads. California may follow suit.
Financiers at Charles River Ventures have already pumped $5 million
into Thrun’s online-ed startup, Udacity. “I like to back people who have
disruptive personalities,” explains CRV partner George Zachary.
“They
create disruptive solutions.”
Udacity’s earliest course offerings have been free, and although Thrun eventually plans to charge something, he wants his tuition
schedule to be shockingly low. Getting a master’s degree might cost
just $100. After teaching his own artificial intelligence class at
Stanford last year—and attracting 160,000 online signups—Thrun believes
online formats can be far more effective than traditional classroom
lectures. “So many people can be helped right now,” Thrun declares. “I
see this as a mission.”
America’s last competitive advantage — its ability to innovate — is at risk as a result of the country’s lackluster education system, according to research by Harvard Innovation Education Fellow Tony Wagner.
Taking the stage at Skillshare’s Penny Conference, Wagner pointed out the skills it takes to become an innovator,
the downfalls of America’s current education system, and how parents,
teachers, mentors, and employers can band together to create innovators.
American schools
educate to fill children with knowledge — instead they should be
focusing on developing students’ innovation skills and motivation to
succeed, he says:
“Today knowledge is
ubiquitous, constantly changing, growing exponentially… Today knowledge
is free. It’s like air, it’s like water. It’s become a commodity…
There’s no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person
next to you. The world doesn’t care what you know. What the world cares
about is what you can do with what you know.”
Knowledge that children are encouraged to soak up in American schools
— the memorization of planets, state capitals, the Periodic Table of
Elements — can only take students so far. But “skill and will” determine a child’s ability to think outside of the box, he says.
Over two year of research involving interviews with executives, college teachers, community leaders, and recent graduates,
Wagner defined the skills needed for Americans to stay competitive in
an increasingly globalized workforce. As lined out in his book, “The Global Achievement Gap,” that set of core competencies that every student must master before the end of high school is:
- Critical thinking and problem solving (the ability to ask the right questions)
- Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
- Agility and adaptability
- Initiative and entrepreneurialism
- Accessing and analyzing information
- Effective written and oral communication
- Curiosity and imagination
*Oprah has been stripped of her executive powers at her own struggling network, according to a report in the National Enquirer.
Her chief financial backer, Discovery Communications, supported the
motion to revoke her privileges. Sources say she was reduced to tears.
“Oprah’s situation is equivalent to Donald Trump telling one of his
‘Celebrity Apprentice’ contestants: ‘You’re fired!’” declared a TV
insider.
But that’s not the end of the madness. She gets to keep the title of
CEO, but it’s only for looks. Discovery, was on board with the launch of
OWN back in 2011, even if it turned out to be a disaster. But now the
tables have turned and it looks like someone else has to take over.
“They now realize that she was too inexperienced to run the network,”
said the insider. “So she was stripped of her power. She’s no longer in
a position to make executive decisions or hire staff without consulting
top Discovery executives first.”
Samsung's Galaxy S III goes on sale in the U.S. later this
month, with Qualcomm's dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor providing the
power behind its performance.
WASHINGTON — New Jersey Muslims have filed a federal lawsuit to try
to put an end to years of spying by the New York Police Department.
It is the first lawsuit to directly challenge the NYPD for
targeting Muslims for widespread surveillance in the years after the
9/11 attacks.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
(AP)
–
U.S. federal agents say they raided Puerto Rico's
international airport and other areas early Wednesday, arresting at
least 33 people suspected of smuggling millions of dollars' worth of
drugs aboard commercial flights.
Americans are in for a cyber-surprise on Wednesday: They’ll be able
to plug family names into an online 1940 U.S. census and come up with
details about the lives of New Yorkers — from Joe DiMaggio and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy to their own relatives.
Starting after midnight, it will no longer be essential to provide
exact addresses from seven decades ago to look for a New York
connection.
With names, free
searches of the 1940 U.S. census first made public in April will unlock
personal information about residents of New York — then the largest
U.S. state and an immigrant hub from which people moved all over the
country.
Starting Tuesday, look out for an unusual warning atop your Gmail
inbox, Google home page or Chrome browser. It will not mince words:
“Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to
compromise your account or computer.”
Google said it planned to issue the warning
anytime it picks up malicious–possibly state-sponsored–activity on a
user’s account or computer. How does Google know whether an attack is
state-sponsored? It won’t say.
“We can’t go into the details
without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad
actors, but our detailed analysis—as well as victim reports—strongly
suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored,”
Eric Grosse, Google’s vice president of security engineering, wrote in a blog post.
The announcement is timed just one week after security researchers discovered Flame, a massive, data-mining virus, had been spying on computers in the Middle East– predominantly in Iran– for at least the last four years.
This is a beautiful country, but the
human beings within it are being turned into something that God Himself
is angry at and sick of. To make God angry is to incur His wrath. John
the Revelator said, "And the nations were angry and Thy wrath is come.
It is the time of the dead that they should be judged and given
justice."
In America, we have millions today who are homeless. We have many more
millions who are sick, imprisoned, impoverished and weak, and it appears
as though the conservative element of the country is moving away from
care for the poor, the weak, the helpless, and the children and catering
to the desires of those that have. But it is the poor and the weak who
built the country. It is the poor and the weak who have fought, bled and
died to maintain America as a great nation. Now America is turning her
back on the weak and blaming the condition of the country on the poor,
on the Black, on the Hispanic. In reality, the mismanagement of the wealth
and people of this country is the fault of those who are at the top who
have held power, who have manipulated the masses of the people against
the good of America and the good of the world.
How will America answer to Christ, with human beings sleeping under bridges and America is spending over half a trillion dollars
to bail out the savings and loan industry, but won't spend money to
bail out those veterans who fought, bled and died, who are sleeping
under bridges, who have fallen on hard times, whose homes and cars have
been repossessed?
What is America coming to? The cities are filled with crime and
violence. People can't walk the streets in safety. The elderly of the
nation are preyed upon by wicked, unscrupulous people who sometimes rob
them of their life savings and of their little social security
checks. The babies of the nation are abused, murdered, drowned in hot
water, even put in ovens by their parents. The stress of life in America
is such that some parents can't handle the crying of children. So
babies are coming to hospitals dying of trauma, shock, their heads
bashed, thrown against the wall, thrown out of windows by parents who
have had enough. Young girls in a sex-mad society are having their
sexual nature titillated by sick television programs, sick movies, sick
video tapes, sick songs from a sick, decadent culture that is using the
talent of gifted people to spread degenerate life in the name of music
and art. Babies are having their sexual nature titillated. Mothers are
not home because they have to work. Daughters are left to be savaged by
brutal men, sometimes their own fathers and uncles, cousins and
brothers. And we ask, “What is the world coming to?”
America the beautiful is becoming America the ugly. They say love her
or leave her. We have no place to go. Some of us will say we will run
to Africa. But Africa is suffering, too. We say we will run to Europe.
Be careful. We say we will run to South America or to Mexico. There is
no hiding place today. The Judgment of God has touched every nation in
every corner of the globe.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A guard held hostage at a South Carolina high security
prison was rescued early Wednesday after a standoff of more than six
hours, a corrections department spokesman said.
The officer was rescued and prison officials regained control of the
building around 3:15 a.m. when negotiations with the inmates failed,
said said Clark Newsome, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections.
About 100 corrections officers and State Law Enforcement
Division agents blew open a door and regained control of the building.
The inmates did not resist, Newsome said. The correctional officer had
been dressed in an inmate's uniform to disguise him but he was
recognized and rescued, Newsome said.
During the standoff, the inmates never left the wing of the Lee
Correctional Institution in Bishopville and there was no danger to the
community, Newsome said.
"No attempt was made to actually get out," Newsome said. "That
probably would have been fruitless because there were so many officers
on the grounds."
The officer appeared to have a suffered a head injury that was not
thought to be serious and was taken to a hospital for evaluation. His
name has not been released.
The World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters is seen in Geneva November 9, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse
Drug-resistant
strains of gonorrhoea have spread to countries across the world, the
U.N. health agency said on Wednesday, and millions of patients may run
out of treatment options unless doctors catch and treat cases earlier.Scientists reported last year finding a "superbug" gonorrhoea strain in Japan
that is resistant to all recommended antibiotics and warned then that
it could transform a once easily treatable infection into a global
health threat.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said those fears are now reality, with many more countries around the world, including Australia,
France, Norway, Sweden and Britain, reporting cases of the sexually
transmitted disease resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics - normally
the last option for drugs against gonorrhoea.
"Gonorrhoea
is becoming a major public health challenge," said Manjula
Lusti-Narasimhan, from the WHO's department of reproductive health and
research.
"We are very concerned
about recent reports of treatment failure from the last effective
treatment option - the class of cephalosporin antibiotics," she added.
"If gonococcal infections become untreatable, the health implications
are significant."
Gonorrhoea is a
bacterial sexually transmitted infection which, if left untreated, can
lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirths,
severe eye infections in babies, and infertility in both men and women.
It
is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world
and is most prevalent in south and southeast Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa. In the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of cases is estimated at
around 700,000 a year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he will boost military cooperation with China,
including holding more joint exercises, after the United States
announced plans to shift most of its warships to the Asia-Pacific by
2020.
The new system will run concurrently with the old for the next few years.
A new standard which will enable the creation of trillions of new web addresses has been enabled.
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) - a replacement to the existing IPv4 system - launched at 00:01 GMT on Wednesday.
The new system is necessary to prevent the internet running out of available addresses for new devices.
Experts said users should not notice any difference in their
web use, and new devices should be using the new system as standard.
The Transit of the Planet Venus Between the Sun and Earth
Enjoy these wonderful photos of the planet Venus during its transition across the Sun on June 5th and 6th (depending where you live), 2012. NOTE: The 'black spot" or "black dot" is the planet Venus transitioning across the Sun.
To see more, and who are credited for taking these photos, click here.
Cheering on your family and friends at graduation has become a risky
proposition as schools around the country have cracked down on
celebrations, withholding diplomas from students and arresting parents who "misbehave" during commencement.
In Florence, S.C., proud mother Sharon Cooper was handcuffed and
escorted out of the arena where daughter Iesha Cooper was graduating
from high school last Saturday. According to South Carolina news station
WPDE,
the school had warned parents earlier that anyone who cheered or yelled
during the roll call would be escorted from the building, and that
people who were disorderly while being led out would be arrested.
Cooper was taken out of the civic center and placed in handcuffs, according to the report.
"'Are you all serious? Are you all for real?' I mean, that's what I'm
thinking in my mind," Cooper told WPDE."I didn't say anything. I was
just like OK, I can't fight the law."
Disney says its programming will no longer be sponsored by junk food.
The Walt Disney Co.
said Tuesday that it will become the first major media company to ban
such ads for its TV channels, radio stations and websites intended for
children. That means kids watching Saturday morning kids' shows on the
company's ABC network will no longer see ads for fast foods and sugary cereals that don't meet Disney's nutrition standards.
Despite the flame-out of Chatroulette,
the idea of fostering live real-time, one-to-one video chats with
friends and strangers is still intriguing, at least to Shawn Fanning and
Sean Parker. The two Napster founders have finally taken the wraps off
of Airtime, their social video chat
service that is part Skype, part Chatroulette, and part SocialCam with
Facebook as the layer for matching users by their interests.
There are three features in Airtime:
There’s a simple one-to-one, web-based video chat service that doesn’t require registration
or a download. You just log-in through Facebook. You can talk to other
Facebook friends and get notifications for chats through Airtime’s
Facebook integration.
Users can watch shared video together in real time and stay in a
video chat as they view the video. For instance, you can watch a YouTube
video together with a friend while also being able to see each other.
Videos that a user previously shared on Facebook are listed under their
Airtime profile and can be clicked on for live viewing. Or users can
find new videos with using YouTube video search.
And there’s the Chatroulette-like feature that allows
strangers to meet outside of their Facebook connections. Users can talk
to other people in their area, friends of friends and people with common
interests. And chat users can share their interests with each other
easily and see what they have in common.
Home
prices may be slipping in the U.S., but they’re booming in some other
nations. The Knight Frank Global House Price Index measures the
performance of residential real estate markets around the world.
According to the firm’s June report, these 10 countries saw the greatest
increase in housing prices in the one-year period that ended in the
first quarter of 2012.
Both the Obama administration and many traditional news outlets have
blown off the claim in journalist Ed Klein’s book that Eric Whitaker, a
close friend of President Obama’s, tried bribing the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright to stay quiet during the 2008 election.
But it turns out that Klein’s book — “The Amateur” —
actually isn’t the first recorded instance of Wright, Obama’s former
inflammatory pastor, claiming someone tried to pay him off to stay quiet
while Obama ran for president.
In David Remnick’s 2010 book, “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama,” the
author quotes Wright saying he was offered cash to shut up by a friend
concerned that his history of incendiary sermons could doom Obama’s
hopes of winning the White House.
“One Obama supporter—a ‘close friend of Barack’s,’ Wright
claimed—even offered to send Wright money if he would only be quiet,”
Remnick wrote. “Wright refused. He was retired now and needed to earn a
living and help support grandchildren in college.”
Remnick quoted Wright saying he wasn’t interested in the money being offered.
“Where’s the money going to come from?” he said. “I’m just going to
be quiet until November the fifth? I’m not supposed to say a word? What
do I tell these people who have invited me to preach? All of these dates
between April and November? So, no, I didn’t cancel engagements, and I
didn’t cancel what I was supposed to be doing.”
