News You Can Use

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Four major US cities ring housing bubble alarm

Home prices in Denver, Houston, Miami and the Washington, D.C., metro area are now considered overvalued.
Some previously hot markets, such as San Francisco and the New York City metropolitan area, are cooling down.
Low mortgage rates are keeping the market affordable from a monthly perspective, but affordability will likely become a much bigger challenge in the coming years.

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Hiroshi in Los Altos may be Silicon Valley's new dealmaking restaurant - Business Insider

Hiroshi is an unusual restaurant for unusual clientele.

Located in Los Altos, California, the newly opened Japanese restaurant accommodates only eight people per night and has no menus, no windows, and one table. Dinner costs at minimum $395 a head, but it averages between $500 and $600 with beverages and tax.

Hiroshi Kimura, the chef and owner, left his restaurant in Hawaii and moved to Silicon Valley in 2016 to launch a concept that would appeal to the deep-pocketed tech elite. Hiroshi hosts three to five dinners a week and is booked solid when a convention comes to town.

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Jalisco New Generation Cartel reportedly makes new members eat flesh of victims - San Antonio Express-News

According to El País, an international publication, two teenagers confessed to authorities that they were forced to eat the flesh of their victims as an initiation into the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in Mexico earlier this year.

The publication reported that the 16- and 17-year-olds told officials in Tabasco, a Mexican state on the southern tip of the country, some flesh-eating occurred in May during an incident involving the CJNG.

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Wisconsin company holds party to implant microchips

RIVER FALLS, Wis. (WBAY) - A Wisconsin company is holding a party Tuesday to implant employees with microchips.

Three Square Market has received international attention since it announced the voluntary microchip program, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.

The microchip program is voluntary. If willing, employees allow the company to implant a Radio-Frequency Identification chip between the thumb and forefinger.

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Bees Are Bouncing Back From Colony Collapse Disorder - Bloomberg

The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component in the agriculture industry, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday. 

The number of commercial U.S. honeybee colonies rose 3 percent to 2.89 million as of April 1, 2017 compared with a year earlier, the Agriculture Department reported. The number of hives lost to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon of disappearing bees that has raised concerns among farmers and scientists for a decade, was 84,430 in this year’s first quarter, down 27 percent from a year earlier. Year-over-year losses declined by the same percentage in April through June, the most recent data in the survey.

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Monsanto’s Sway Over Research Is Seen in Disclosed Emails - The New York Times

Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company’s efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup.

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The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015. Mr. Miller could not be reached for comment.

A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, “I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.”

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Nasa offering six-figure salary for new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from aliens | The Independent

Nasa is hiring someone who can defend Earth from alien contamination.

The full-time role of “planetary protection officer” will involve ensuring that humans in space do not contaminate planets and moons, as well as ensuring that alien matter does not infect Earth.

The pay is a six-figure salary: as much as $187,000 (£141,000) a year plus benefits.

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DART Passenger Jumped, Beaten After Asking Group To Stop Smoking « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – A Dallas Area Rapid Transit passenger was ganged up on and beaten after asking a group of people to stop smoking pot on the train late Sunday night.

It happened on a Northbound Green Line train near the Deep Ellum Station.

DART spokesman Mark Ball said five males and two females started to spit and hit victim Kennan Jones after he complained.

“Everything just went from 0 to 100,” said Jones, who is grateful to have survived. “I’m just very happy to be here… happy to hug my kids.”  

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Gaming the system. This is what you get when you have variable pricing.

Not fare: how Uber drivers gang up to exploit passengers | News | The Times & The Sunday Times

Academics interviewed Uber drivers in London and New York and analysed 1,012 posts on the independent Uberpeople.net site, finding that drivers were playing the company’s algorithms.

According to the researchers, drivers in the same area co-ordinate to log out of the taxi-hailing app so that their cars drop off the list of available rides.

This causes prices to increase in line with the economics of supply and demand, with fares potentially rising to several times the normal rate.

The team from Warwick Business School, in Coventry, and New York University cited a conversation on one online forum where a London driver said:…

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Woman blinded when man pours bleach on her face in SF attack - SFGate

A woman was blinded Sunday evening in a vicious bleach attack in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, officials said.
The 57-year-old woman was sitting on the sidewalk on Mason Street, between Turk and Eddy streets, about 7:30 p.m., when a man in his early 20s approached her and poured bleach on her face, police said.
“She was sitting down when a man approached her and told her to get up and go away, and then he walked away,” said Officer Robert Rueca, a police spokesman. “He returned back to her with a cup in his hand — she believed it was bleach — and poured it on her, causing her to lose vision.”

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Wolf bot to help scare wildlife away from farmers’ crops - The Japan News

According to the agricultural cooperative association JA Kisarazu-shi, the 65-centimeter-long, 50-centimeter-high robot is almost the same size as an adult wolf. Named Super Monster Wolf, the robot is covered by fur and is baring its fangs.

The robot detects wild animals with an infrared ray sensor when they approach and intimidates them, flashing the red LEDs of its eyes on and off, and blaring 18 types of sounds in rotation, including a wolf’s growl, a human voice and a gunshot. The agricultural cooperative borrowed the robot for free from a Hokkaido company that developed it to keep away bears and deer.

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EXCLUSIVE: Al Gore's Home Devours 34 Times Mo | The Daily Caller

On Friday, Al Gore’s sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth” – “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” – arrives in movie theaters across the country. But there’s another inconvenient sequel worth noting and, like most sequels, this one is even worse than the original.

Gore’s hypocritical home energy use and “do as I say not as I do” lifestyle has plunged to embarrassing new depths.

In just this past year, Gore burned through enough energy to power the typical American household for more than 21 years, according to a new report by the National Center for Public Policy Research. The former vice president consumed 230,889 kilowatt hours (kWh) at his Nashville residence, which includes his home, pool and driveway entry gate electricity meters. A typical family uses an average of 10,812 kWh of electricity per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

It gets worse.

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U.S. scientists fix disease genes in human embryos for 1st time

For the first time, scientists working in a U.S. lab have used gene editing to correct a disease-causing mutation in viable human embryos, according to scientific paper published Wednesday.

The work, reported in Nature, could be a step toward genetically modified babies. But the altered embryos created in the study were quickly destroyed and never intended to be implanted in a woman — a step that would be illegal under current regulations in the United States and many other countries.

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U.S. scientists fix disease genes in human embryos for 1st time

For the first time, scientists working in a U.S. lab have used gene editing to correct a disease-causing mutation in viable human embryos, according to scientific paper published Wednesday.

The work, reported in Nature, could be a step toward genetically modified babies. But the altered embryos created in the study were quickly destroyed and never intended to be implanted in a woman — a step that would be illegal under current regulations in the United States and many other countries.

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Crops that kill pests by shutting off their genes -- ScienceDaily

As chemical pesticides raise concerns over insect resistance, collateral environmental damage, and human exposure risks, transgenic methods are becoming an attractive option for future pest control. For instance, certain strains of corn and cotton have been modified to produce protein toxins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that poison certain worms, beetles, and moths. RNA interference adds another degree of subtlety, by instead shutting down essential genes in pests that consume crops.

"RNA interference-based pest control can provide protection at essentially no cost because once the variety is developed, the plant can just go on using it instead of needing additional applications of insecticide," says co-senior author Ralph Bock, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany.

An RNA interference strategy could also address environmental and human toxicity questions around chemical pesticides. "When we target a key pest with RNA interference technology, what we are really hoping for is to see a big reduction in overall insecticide use," says co-senior author David Heckel, a director at the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology.

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U.S. Faces Looming Shortage Of Primary Care Physicians « CBS New York

CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez reports a combination of retiring doctors and increasing demand will lead to a significant need for primary care physicians. But some medical schools are working to ease the problem.

Dr. Katelyn Norman just started her internal medicine residency at Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut. It’s one of the final steps to achieving her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor.

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Fido And Fluffy Are Ruining The Environment, UCLA Study Says - Hollywood, CA Patch

LOS ANGELES, CA — When it comes to global warming, Fido and Fluffy are part of the problem, a new study by UCLA indicates.

Most cat or dog lovers would say they can't imagine living in a world without pets, but as the threat of global warming increases, environmentally conscious pet lovers may need to make some tough choices, according to the study.

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City Council Considers Stance On Protecting Immigrants From Federal Agents « CBS Denver

DENVER (CBS4)– Dozens of people filled the room where the Denver City Council met on Wednesday to consider taking a stance on protecting immigrants from federal agents. The safety committee passed the ordinance by a vote of 6-1.

This comes on the same day as Pres. Donald Trump endorsed the RAISE Act, an immigration bill aimed at reducing legal immigration overall, and give priority to English-speaking applicants.

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City Council Considers Stance On Protecting Immigrants From Federal Agents « CBS Denver

DENVER (CBS4)– Dozens of people filled the room where the Denver City Council met on Wednesday to consider taking a stance on protecting immigrants from federal agents. The safety committee passed the ordinance by a vote of 6-1.

This comes on the same day as Pres. Donald Trump endorsed the RAISE Act, an immigration bill aimed at reducing legal immigration overall, and give priority to English-speaking applicants.

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Half of Detroit mayoral candidates are felons

Detroit — Half of the eight mayoral hopefuls on Detroit’s primary ballot next week have been convicted of felony crimes involving drugs, assault or weapons, a Detroit News analysis shows.

Three were charged with gun crimes and two for assault with intent to commit murder. Some of the offenses date back decades, the earliest to 1977. The most recent was in 2008.

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WikiLeaks Releases Docs on 'Dumbo' CIA Tool Allowing Control of Webcams - Sputnik International

WikiLeaks released new documents on Thursday within the Vault 7 documents, which contain information on CIA's hacking tools from the Dumbo project.

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Second garbage patch the size of Texas discovered in Pacific Ocean - SFGate

Scientists on a recent six-month expedition have discovered the presence of a second garbage patch in the South Pacific, and are saying that the plastic vortex could be bigger than the state of Texas.

Charles Moore set sail with a group of volunteer researchers in November 2016 to look at plastic pollution off the coast of Chile. It was during their research that the team discovered the large amount of plastic floating in the South Pacific, measuring an estimated million square kilometers, or 1.5 times the size of Texas.

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Hyperloop pod travels 192mph in maiden journey

The ultra-fast Hyperloop is one step closer to becoming a reality after its pod travelled 192 miles per hour in its maiden journey.  

Hyperloop One said its prototype for the high-speed transport system, which could travel from London to Edinburgh in 50 minutes, reached the speed on a 500-metre-long test track in the Nevada desert. 

The test marks the first time Hyperloop One has propelled one of its carriages along the tube, as well as the fastest journey for the technology. The company completed its first trial in May, which involved a smaller trolley reaching a top speed of 70 miles per hour.

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If the FBI Has Your Biometrics, It Doesn't Have to Tell You - Nextgov.com

A new rule will prevent millions of people from finding out if their fingerprints, iris scans and other biometric information is stored in a massive federal database.

The FBI’s Next Generation Identification system stores the biometric records of people who have undergone background checks for jobs, volunteer positions and military service, as well as of those who have criminal records. Effective Aug. 31, that database will be exempt from certain parts of the Privacy Act, a law that allows people whose records are held by the federal government to request more information about which records those are.

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Cannabis Grower Buys California Town to Build Pot-Friendly Outpost - Bloomberg

American Green Inc., a maker of cannabis products, is taking an unusual step to attract new customers as it capitalizes on California legalizing marijuana: It’s buying an entire town.

The company has acquired the tiny burg of Nipton, California, for about $5 million and plans to invest as much as $2.5 million over the next 18 months to create a pot-friendly tourist destination. The purchase includes 120 acres of land with a general store, a hotel, a school building and mineral baths.

American Green, based in Tempe, Arizona, will use the existing structures and build new ones -- powered by renewable energy -- to revitalize the town, said project manager Stephen Shearin. Ideally, the outpost will spawn imitators, he said.