News You Can Use

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'Sanctuary schools' across America defy Trump's immigration crackdown | US news | The Guardian

It’s been an excruciating six months since 14-year-old Fatima Avelica watched, sobbing, as immigration agents picked up her father on their way to school.

Fatima’s father, Rómulo Avelica-González, who immigrated illegally from Mexico in the 1990s, had driven Fatima and her 12-year-old sister, Yuleni, to school in Los Angeles every morning for years, despite a deportation order hanging over his head. But a month after Donald Trump took office and promptly called for ramped-up immigration arrests, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled over the family’s car.

The wrenching video of the arrest that Fatima took from the backseat went viral — capturing a moment that would come to symbolize the anguish of schoolchildren who have seen their families torn apart by aggressive immigration enforcement, and others who worry their families could be next.

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Teen pleads guilty to lesser charge in Slender Man attack

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — One of two Wisconsin girls charged with repeatedly stabbing a classmate to impress the fictitious horror character Slender Man pleaded guilty Monday, but she still faces a trial in the case next month focused on her mental health.

Anissa Weier, 15, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide as a party to a crime, with use of a deadly weapon. She initially faced a charge of attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the 2014 attack on Payton Leutner in Waukesha, a city west of Milwaukee.

The plea means her trial next month will look only at whether she is legally responsible for the crime or not guilty because of mental illness. She could face 10 years in prison if she’s found guilty. If not, she’ll spend three years in a mental hospital.

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Landlord trying to evict tenant for hanging Confederate flags in windows | New York Post

A Manhattan landlord is trying to evict a tenant for displaying two Confederate flags in the windows of his East Village apartment.

The court papers argue that tenant Will Green, who lives in a rent-regulated $1,141 apartment on East Eighth Street, “contractually gave up any free speech rights by his execution of the lease agreement, which bans objectionable conduct.

“The conduct of the defendant in the wake of the recent activities in Charlottesville, Va., the president’s statements related to the same and public concerns make the defendant’s actions unreasonable in character,” argues building owner Charles Yassky in the new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

“This conduct is a prohibited, anti-social and intentional act that has no valid societal purpose and is not protected by any legal theory,” Yassky says in the suit.

The building owner claims that Green’s flags — which he has illuminated at night with a spotlight from his fifth-floor unit — have created “a clear and present danger to the building, its residents and the community at large.”

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Christopher Columbus monument vandalized in Baltimore - Baltimore Sun

Amonument in Baltimore to Christopher Columbus was vandalized overnight.

Baltimore Police said they were looking into the incident.

A video posted to YouTube shows a man striking the base of the monument near Herring Run Park repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Another person holds a sign that reads: “Racism, tear it down.” Another sign is taped to the monument reading: “The future is racial and economic justice.”

The narrator of the video, who says his name is Ty, calls Christopher Columbus a “genocidal terrorist.”

The vandalism comes nearly one week after city officials swiftly removed four controversial monuments: a statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate Women’s monument, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument and a statue of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who authored the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery.

[Sirocco]

This is the same message from SLC.

News from The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis on Monday urged countries to greatly improve their welcome to migrants and stop collective expulsions, saying migrants' dignity and right to protection trumps national security concerns.

Francis' politically pointed message was made in view of the Catholic Church's 2018 world refugee day, celebrated Jan. 14. It comes amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and beyond following waves of migrant arrivals and Islamic extremist attacks.

In the message, Francis demanded governments welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants, saying Jesus' message of love is rooted in welcoming the "rejected strangers of every age."

He is the worst pope, a globalist pile of trash!

[Joel]

A NASA plan to stop the Yellowstone supervolcano from erupting, could actually cause it to blow... triggering a nuclear winter that would wipe out humanity.

Yellowstone currently leaks about 60 to 70 percent of its heat into the atmosphere through stream water which seeps into the magma chamber through cracks, while the rest of the heat builds up as magma and dissolves into volatile gasses. The heat and pressure will reach the threshold, meaning an explosion is inevitable. When NASA scientists considered the fact that a super volcano’s eruption would plunge the earth into a volcanic winter, destroying most sources of food, starvation would then become a real possibility. Food reserves would only last about 74 days, according to the UN, after an eruption of a super volcano, like that under Yellowstone. And they have devised a risky plan that could end up blowing up in their faces. Literally.

Wilcox hypothesized that if enough heat was removed, and the temperature of the super volcano dropped, it would never erupt. But he wants to see a 35% decrease in temperature, and how to achieve that, is incredibly risky. One possibility is to simply increase the amount of water in the supervolcano. As it turns to steam. the water would release the heat into the atmosphere, making global warming alarmists tremble.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-1 ... -one-catch

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UPDATE 5: Bruzzese ‘doing fine’ in hospital after shooting, investigation ongoing | News, Sports, Jobs - The Herald Star

STEUBENVILLE — Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Bruzzese is out of surgery and “doing fine” at UPMC in Pittsburgh, according to City Manager Jim Mavromatis.

Bruzzese was shot in an ambush-style attack outside the Jefferson County Courthouse on his way into his office Monday morning.

County officials said the courthouse, which was closed today as the investigation progresses, will remain closed Tuesday.

Mavromatis said the family of the shooter, who was shot and killed by a probation officer who happened upon the exchange of gunfire between the shooter and the judge, has been notified.

The name of the shooter is expected to be released to reporters later today.

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Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency - The New York Times

Hackers have discovered that one of the most central elements of online security — the mobile phone number — is also one of the easiest to steal.

In a growing number of online attacks, hackers have been calling up Verizon, T-Mobile U.S., Sprint and AT&T and asking them to transfer control of a victim’s phone number to a device under the control of the hackers.

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Scientists remotely hacked a brain, controlling body movements – BGR

The effort, led by physics professor Arnd Pralle, PhD, of the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, focused on a technique called “magneto-thermal stimulation.” It’s not exactly a simple process — it requires the implantation of specially built DNA strands and nanoparticles which attach to specific neurons — but once the minimally invasive procedure is over, the brain can be remotely controlled via an alternating magnetic field. When those magnetic inputs are applied, the particles heat up, causing the neurons to fire.

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The only solution that this guy is suggesting that I agree with is the monopoly busting. If it weren't for breaking up AT&T we would all still be using rotary phones and there wouldn't be mobile phones.

The fantasy of Silicon Valley

This has caused a lot of consternation among Silicon Valley's fans — and the industry's own entrepreneurs. If the tech sector is creating such amazing new advances and innovations, why aren't those advances showing up in productivity growth? A lot of theories have been put forward: We're measuring the data wrong, the shift from manufacturing to services inevitably slows down economies, technological innovation takes time to be integrated into mainstream American workplaces, or we went through a uniquely valuable and never-to-be-repeated burst of technological innovations in mid-century.

The first theory has been pretty convincingly disproven. The others could well contain valuable truths. But the simplest explanation is that we had a lot of policies in the mid-century that forced companies to be more innovative, and then those went away in the years before and after 1980. These policies created fierce competition, driving down the prices that companies could charge consumers. And it prevented them from juicing profits by depressing wages. The only way to maintain a profit was to continuously innovate new ways to do more with less. We used to have strong unions and extremely high marginal tax rates on the wealthy. We used to have a suite of fiscal and monetary policies that kept unemployment low and labor markets tight. We used to have aggressive antitrust policy that busted up companies before they gained even a fraction of the market power that Google and Facebook and the like now enjoy.

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Big data finds the Medieval Warm Period – no denial here | The Spectator Australia

So, our new technical paper in GeoResJ (vol. 14, pages 36-46) will likely be ignored.  Because after applying the latest big data technique to six 2,000 year-long proxy-temperature series we cannot confirm that recent warming is anything but natural – what might have occurred anyway, even if there was no industrial revolution.

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How Google is secretly recording YOU through your mobile, monitoring millions of conversations every day and storing the creepy audio files

DID you know that Google has been recording you without your knowledge?

The technology giant has effectively turned millions of its users' smartphones into listening devices that can capture intimate conversations - even when they aren't in the room.

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Drowning in debt, Connecticut faces budget crunch

HARTFORD (Reuters) - Connecticut, home to hedge fund billionaires alongside cities mired in poverty, is racing against the clock to pass a budget or face further spending cuts to education and municipal aid across the state.

Nearly two months without a budget, Connecticut is getting crushed by a burdensome debt load that has squeezed spending and amplified legislative discord.

State lawmakers must agree on a biennial budget soon or else Governor Dannel Malloy's executive order to slash state aid to municipalities and eliminate school funding for some districts will go into effect in October. The state faces a $3.5 billion deficit over the next two years.

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Hundreds confess to eating human flesh | News24

Later, ward councillor Mthembeni Majola, who held a meeting at the Esigodlweni community hall on Monday morning, said that around 300 residents had confessed to visiting Mbatha, an nyanga, and knowingly eating human flesh that he gave to them.

He said that there were around 700 people at the meeting where about 300 residents confessed to allegedly knowing Mbatha had human flesh and allegedly confessed to eating it.

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Parents Grill School Board Over Kindergarten Transgender Discussions « CBS13 | CBS Sacramento

ROCKLIN (CBS13) — The Rocklin Academy school board is facing tough questions from parents concerned over a controversial incident involving transgender discussions inside a kindergarten class.

"These parents feel betrayed by the school district that they were not notified," said Karen England with the Capitol Resource Institute.

The incident happened earlier this summer during the last few days of the academic school year.

At Monday night's board meeting, the teacher at the center of the controversy spoke out. With emotions high, she addressed a packed house.

"I'm so proud of my students, it was never my intent to harm any students but to help them through a difficult situation," she said.

The teacher defended her actions to read two children's books about transgenderism including one titled "I am Jazz." She says the books were given to her by a transgender child going through a transition.

[Joel]

[Joel]

Appeals court panel rules against coach Kennedy in postgame prayer case

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has declined Joe Kennedy’s request for a legal injunction that would have reinstated him to his job as an assistant football coach at Bremerton High School and allowed him to pray after games.

Kennedy was placed on paid leave from the job in 2015, when he refused an order from administrators at the Bremerton School District that he cease praying on the football field following games.

His contract was not renewed in 2016.

In the legal battle that followed, Kennedy argued that the district had violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. The district said Kennedy had violated its policy upholding the separation of church and state.

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit panel wrote that Kennedy “spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen when he kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games in school-logoed attire while in view of students and parents.”

Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote in the opinion that Kennedy “took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him. … Because plaintiff’s demonstrative speech fell within the scope of his typical job responsibilities, he spoke as a public employee, and the district was permitted to order him not to speak in the manner that he did.”

[tribrac]

Just look at these two stories and think about what the Judges and schools are encouraging and what they are excluding. Christians are being walked into a corner, and the corner is getting smaller.

Parents Grill School Board Over Kindergarten Transgender Discussions « CBS13 | CBS Sacramento

ROCKLIN (CBS13) — The Rocklin Academy school board is facing tough questions from parents concerned over a controversial incident involving transgender discussions inside a kindergarten class.

"These parents feel betrayed by the school district that they were not notified," said Karen England with the Capitol Resource Institute.

The incident happened earlier this summer during the last few days of the academic school year.

At Monday night's board meeting, the teacher at the center of the controversy spoke out. With emotions high, she addressed a packed house.

"I'm so proud of my students, it was never my intent to harm any students but to help them through a difficult situation," she said.

The teacher defended her actions to read two children's books about transgenderism including one titled "I am Jazz." She says the books were given to her by a transgender child going through a transition.

Appeals court panel rules against coach Kennedy in postgame prayer case

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has declined Joe Kennedy’s request for a legal injunction that would have reinstated him to his job as an assistant football coach at Bremerton High School and allowed him to pray after games.

Kennedy was placed on paid leave from the job in 2015, when he refused an order from administrators at the Bremerton School District that he cease praying on the football field following games.

His contract was not renewed in 2016.

In the legal battle that followed, Kennedy argued that the district had violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. The district said Kennedy had violated its policy upholding the separation of church and state.

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit panel wrote that Kennedy “spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen when he kneeled and prayed on the fifty-yard line immediately after games in school-logoed attire while in view of students and parents.”

Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. wrote in the opinion that Kennedy “took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him. … Because plaintiff’s demonstrative speech fell within the scope of his typical job responsibilities, he spoke as a public employee, and the district was permitted to order him not to speak in the manner that he did.”

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Charlotte woman questions TSA pat-down | Charlotte Observer

Jenna MacFarlane was on the way to visit a friend in Baltimore in April when her carry-on bag triggered an alarm at Charlotte’s airport.

A Transportation Security Administration screener told MacFarlane she would have to undergo a full-body pat-down by a female officer. Late for her flight and with no option other than to be searched in private, MacFarlane agreed.

The pat-down, done over her clothes, explored her breasts, crotch and buttocks.

“I did not imagine that she would ask me a few times to spread my legs wider and in fact touch my vagina four times with the side of her hand,” MacFarlane later wrote in a complaint to the TSA.

[mes5464]

This is criminal. This guy wasn't elected to be president.

Kelly moves to control the information Trump sees - POLITICO

Confronted with a West Wing that treated policymaking as a free-for-all, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, is instituting a system used by previous administrations to limit internal competition — and to make himself the last word on the material that crosses the president’s desk.

It’s a quiet effort to make Trump conform to White House decision-making norms he’s flouted without making him feel shackled or out of the loop. In a conference call last week, Kelly initiated a new policymaking process in which just he and one other aide — White House staff secretary Rob Porter, a little-known but highly regarded Rhodes scholar who overlapped with Jared Kushner as an undergraduate at Harvard — will review all documents that cross the Resolute desk.

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Vast number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck - CBS News

The survey highlights a troubling trend in household finances: More than eight years since the end of the recession, the share of Americans who are living on the financial edge is growing, said Mike Erwin, a spokesman for CareerBuilder. While some may want to blame Americans' spendthrift ways, Erwin pointed to two trends that continue to put financial stress on households: stagnant wages and the rising cost of everything from education to many consumer goods. 

"Living paycheck to paycheck is the new way of life for U.S. workers," he said. "It's not just one salary range. It's pretty much across the board, and it's trending in the wrong direction."

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Health benefits of cinnamon - CNN

(CNN)Cinnamon is one of the world's most popular spices, sprinkled on lattes, boiled with ciders and enjoyed in numerous dishes. Without it, Thanksgiving and Christmas meals might well become tasteless and definitely less fragrant.

Harvested from the inner bark of a tropical evergreen plant, cinnamon has been used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat respiratory and digestive problems for centuries. Ancient Egyptians used cinnamon as a perfume during the embalming process, while Romans used it in funeral pyres to mask the stench of burning flesh.
The Bible mentions cinnamon several times, most commonly as a way to perfume bedding, clothes and anointing oil. The essential oil form is made from the bark, leaves or twigs of the plant.

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Bill Gates and Richard Branson Back Startup That Grows ‘Clean Meat’ - Bloomberg

Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water.

Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells without raising and slaughtering livestock or poultry, raised $17 million from investors including Cargill, Gates and billionaire Richard Branson, according to a statement Tuesday on the San Francisco-based startup’s website. The fundraising round was led by venture-capital firm DFJ, which has previously backed several social-minded retail startups.

"I’m thrilled to have invested in Memphis Meats,” Branson said in an email in response to questions from Bloomberg News. “I believe that in 30 years or so we will no longer need to kill any animals and that all meat will either be clean or plant-based, taste the same and also be much healthier for everyone.”

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Armed Antifa Call For Open Revolution | The Daily Caller

An armed Antifa group is launching a new cell in Philadelphia, with support from the “alt-left” alternative media.

The group currently hosts anti-police workshops called “Our Enemies in Blue.” The group draws inspiration from convicted murderers and calls for violence against the police, theft of goods, and armed insurrection.

Antifa websites like It’s Going Down, Sub.Media and Insurrection News have been promoting the group, which calls itself the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, calling on their readers to donate to a Fundrazr account for the creation of the new cell.

The press release the group published in far-left media is filled with hyperbolic claims about how “mosques are being ruthlessly bombed” and how “LGBTQ are being battered.”

“The destruction of black life continues unabated as millions languish in the plantations of the modern day slave system,” the group states.