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mes5464
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The Global Famine Begins: UN Announces That The Worst Food Crisis Since World War II Is Happening Right Now
We always knew that this would start happening.  Earlier this month, I wrote about the severe economic problems that are plaguing South America, but up to this point I have neglected to discuss the horrific famines that are breaking out all over Africa.  Right now there is a desperate need for food in South Sudan, Somalia, northeast Nigeria, Eritrea and Kenya.  And Yemen, even though it is not technically part of Africa, is being affected by many of the same factors that are crippling nations all over eastern Africa.  The United Nations says that more than 20 million people could die from starvation and disease if nothing is done.  When I write about economic collapse, this is the kind of thing that I am talking about, and we are starting to see alarming conditions spread across the globe.  Many believe that we could never possibly face this kind of food crisis in the western world, but unfortunately wishful thinking will only get you so far.

The United Nations was formed in 1945, and the UN has just announced that what we are facing this year is “the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN”.  The following comes from a CNN article entitled “20 million at risk of starvation in world’s largest crisis since 1945, UN says“…
“We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN,” UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said Friday.

“Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease.”

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Cops' startup uses facial recognition to improve security | David Nicklaus | stltoday.com
At one MotoMart, you can’t enter at night unless you look into the camera.

If your face is obscured by a mask, face or hood, the door stays locked. If the camera gets a good look at you, it lets you in.

The MotoMart, on Riverview Drive just north of Interstate 270, is piloting a facial recognition system designed by a trio of current and former police officers who decided they’d rather prevent crimes than investigate them.

Their company, Blue Line Technology, has installed cameras with its software at several places around town, including Spire’s corporate headquarters, St. Mary’s High School and another convenience store on Hampton Avenue.

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Conservative students say they have been 'violently threatened' at Lutheran college - The College Fix
Four in five students at St. Olaf College, a Lutheran liberal arts school, voted for the Clinton/Kaine ticket in 2016, while Trump/Pence drew 1 in 10 and Johnson/Weld 1 in 20.

But it’s not only that feeling of marginalization that has led conservative students to stay in the closet at the Minnesota school known for its music program, according to student newspaper Manitou Messenger:

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Twitter User Who Caused Seizure Now Charged With Assault | The Daily Caller
John Rivello, the Twitter user who allegedly sent a tweet that caused a journalist to have a seizure, was charged by the Dallas District Attorney Monday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The felony assault charge comes with a hate crime enhancement.

The Maryland man was arrested by the FBI Friday for allegedly sending an animated image, also known as a GIF, to Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald in December which said, “you deserve a seizure.”

Eichenwald’s wife subsequently tweeted that the GIF had indeed caused Eichenwald to have a seizure. The federal criminal complaint says that a direct message from Rivello’s alleged account, “Ari Goldstein” or “@jew_goldstein,” to another account said he hopes that the GIF “sends” Eichenwald “into a seizure.”

The FBI located Rivello through an Apple iCloud account associated with a phone number he used to sign up for Twitter. The iCloud account included a photo of Rivello posing with his driver’s license, the complaint says.

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Goldman building robo-adviser to give investment advice to the masses | Reuters
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), known for advising the world's richest and most powerful, is building a so-called robo-adviser geared to mass affluent customers, according to a job listing posted Monday on the bank's website.

A Goldman spokesman declined to comment.

The job posting for employees to help build the platform (See the job ad here) comes as Goldman is looking at ways to broaden its customer base outside the super wealthy, including making deeper inroads into new consumer-focused businesses.

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$20 trillion debt deserves as much attention as Dow hitting 20,000 | New York Post
The media and Wall Street got all excited when the Dow Jones industrial average hit 20,000 earlier this year — and justifiably so.

But why not give the same sort of attention to the US federal debt, which will slip past $20 trillion later this year or in early 2018.

The symmetry of these two numbers is just too precious to ignore.

As of Monday afternoon, the US debt, according to usdebtclock.org, stood at $19.849 trillion — and was rising at the rate of $13,404,542 an hour.

That’s $321,709,008 million a day.

At this pace, the first digit on the tote board will flip in 469 days — on July 2, 2018.

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Yea. This is a trick.

New York's richest tell state to raise their taxes - NY Daily News
Some of the wealthiest New Yorkers are asking the state to raise their taxes.

Eighty people including George Soros, Steven Rockefeller and Abigail Disney wrote to lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying they and other top earners should pay more to support schools, roads, bridges and programs to help poor and homeless residents of the state.

"Now is the time to invest in the long-term economic viability of New York," the letter reads. "We need to invest in pathways out of poverty and up the economic ladder for all of our fellow citizens, including strong public education from pre-K to college. And, we need to invest in the fragile bridges, tunnels, waterlines, public buildings, and roads that we all depend on."

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, endorses a plan that would create new, higher income tax brackets for top earners to raise a projected $2 billion.

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News from The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- An organization affiliated with Google is offering tools that news organizations and election-related sites can use to protect themselves from hacking.

Jigsaw, a research arm of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., says that free and fair elections depend on access to information. . To ensure such access, Jigsaw says, sites for news, human rights and election monitoring need to be protected from cyberattacks.

Jigsaw's suite of tools, called Protect Your Election, is mostly a repackaging of existing tools:

- Project Shield will help websites guard against denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers flood sites with so much traffic that legitimate visitors can't get through. Users of Project Shield will be tapping technology and servers that Google already uses to protect its own sites from such attacks.

- Password Alert is software that people can add to Chrome browsers to warn them when they try to enter their Google password on another site, often a sign of a phishing attempt.

- 2-Step Verification helps beef up security beyond passwords by requiring a second access code, such as a text sent to a verified cellphone. Though Jigsaw directs users to turn this on for Google accounts, most major rivals offer similar protections, too.

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Fox News pulls Judge Napolitano over his Trump wiretap claims - LA Times
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano is being kept off the air indefinitely amid the controversy over his unverified claims that British intelligence wiretapped Trump Tower at the behest of former President Obama.

Fox News did not respond to inquiries about Napolitano’s status Monday. Napolitano was conspicuously missing from the network’s coverage of the confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch — an event in which he typically would have played a significant role. He has not been on the air since Thursday.

People familiar with the situation who could speak only on the condition of anonymity said Napolitano is not expected to be on Fox News Channel any time in the near future. Napolitano was not available for comment.

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Anne Frank Center Blasts Tim Allen for Comparing Hollywood to Nazi Germany
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect demanded an apology from actor Tim Allen after he compared life for Hollywood conservatives to living in “’30s Germany.”

That era, of course, was when Adolf Hilter rose to power and the Nazis began their campaign of mass extermination of Jews and many others they deemed undesirable. The Anne Frank Center called Allen’s comparison “deeply offensive” and said it “trivializes the horrors imposed on Jews in Nazi Germany.”

The “Last Man Standing actor said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Friday: “You gotta be real careful around here, you know. You’ll get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes. It’s like ’30s Germany.”

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Sweden preparing nuclear fallout bunkers across the country amid fear of Russian war
NUCLEAR war shelters are being readied in Sweden to prepare for a surprise Russian attack, according to reports.

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has reportedly been ordered to carry out a review this year of bunkers the coming weeks as the Scandinavian country also reintroduces military service.


Inside the 'billionaire bunkers' bought by the super rich | Daily Mail Online
An increasing number of people are spending millions on 'doomsday bunkers' to survive a catastrophic event
Sales of underground bunkers have increased in some instances by 300 per cent since Trump's election win
Some of the biggest US-based facilities are located in: South Dakota, Texas, Kansas, and New York 
Many of the bunkers are built to house thousands of people and to potentially withstand nuclear explosions 

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News from The Associated Press
CHICAGO (AP) -- Chicago Police are searching for five or six men or boys suspected of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl on Facebook Live.

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Trump to Republicans: Vote for Obamacare repeal or lose your seat - POLITICO
President Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning with a stern message for Republicans who've been wobbly about dismantling Obamacare: Give me your vote or you may lose your seat in 2018.

Trump warned Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, who has led conservative opposition to the Republican health care plan, that "I'm gonna come after you" if he keeps it up, according to multiple sources.

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EU Official: We'll Force Members To Accept Refugees | The Daily Caller
The commissioner for the European Union’s “Common Immigration and Asylum Policy” said the bloc can force member states to accept refugees, the Associated Press reports.

The commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that the bloc has the “tools, the means and the power,” to force member states to comply. Avramopoulos’s comments came during a visit to Poland, which has opposed EU efforts to resettle refugees. Poland argues that many of the refugees in Europe came to improve their economic prospects, rather than fleeing a dangerous war-zone.

Avramopoulos’s comments are the latest in a series of threats by EU officials to countries that refuse to accept refugees or challenge the EU’s quotas. “The Commission might start infraction procedures” against resistant nations, European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans declared in early February. He expressed his hope that “peer pressure” would force countries to comply.

Hungary, another member state, sued the bloc in December, 2015, saying mandatory resettlement quotas would affect the country’s internal security. The resettlement quotas allocate refugees across the EU based on the population of each country. Hungary voted against the measure in the EU parliament, along with several Eastern European countries.

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Satnavs 'switch off' parts of the brain | EurekAlert! Science News
Using a satnav to get to your destination 'switches off' parts of the brain that would otherwise be used to simulate different routes, reveals new UCL research.

The study, published in Nature Communications and funded by Wellcome, involved 24 volunteers navigating a simulation of Soho in central London while undergoing brain scans. The researchers investigated activity in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory and navigation, and the prefrontal cortex which is involved in planning and decision-making. They also mapped the labyrinth of London's streets to understand how these brain regions reacted to them.

When volunteers navigated manually, their hippocampus and prefrontal cortex had spikes of activity when volunteers entered new streets. This brain activity was greater when the number of options to choose from increased, but no additional activity was detected when people followed satnav instructions.

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Access to nature reduces depression and obesity, finds European study | Society | The Guardian
People living close to trees and green spaces are less likely to be obese, inactive, or dependent on anti-depressants, according to a new report.

Middle-aged Scottish men with homes in deprived but verdant areas were found to have a death rate 16% lower than their more urban counterparts. Pregnant women also received a health boost from a greener environment, recording lower blood pressures and giving birth to larger babies, research in Bradford found.

Overall, nature is an under-recognised healer, the paper says, offering multiple health benefits from allergy reductions to increases in self-esteem and mental wellbeing.

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Rich get even richer: Forbes’ global list shows record 2,043 billionaires — RT News
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has has retained the title of the world’s richest man for the fourth year in a row, with a record 2,043 billionaires worldwide, Forbes magazine’s annual list revealed.
Bill Gates wealth has been estimated by Forbes at $86 billion as the tech mogul and philanthropist earned around $11 billion over the last 12 months. 

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett took second spot on the list, which was released Monday, with $75.6 billion in the bank.

The podium was completed by Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who is worth $72.8 billion, according to the magazine.

The rest of the top 10 includes Spanish clothing retailer Amancio Ortega ($71.3 billion), Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook in fifth ($56 billion), Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu ($54.5 billion), Oracle founder Larry Ellison ($52.2 billion), US entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch ($48.3 billion each) as well as financial data and news mogul Michael Bloomberg ($47.5 billion).

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Judge Neil Gorsuch Promises Senators He Will Uphold the Constitution as Written - Breitbart
WASHINGTON, DC—Judge Neil Gorsuch gave his opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday on the first day of hearings on his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In it he unpacked his views on the job of unelected judges in a democratic republic, giving his personal story and pledging to be a public servant who faithfully follows the Constitution and the laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives.

“Judging is sometimes a lonely and hard job,” Gorsuch mused, in a wide-ranging speech that ranged from the dramatic, to the humorous, to reflections — at times showing deep passion, and on two occasions even getting emotional.

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Swedish Police in Trollhattan Attacked by "Youths"
Several Swedish police were attacked by a large gang of “youths” who went on a rampage armed with rocks and fireworks in the city of Trollhattan over the weekend.

On Sunday evening a group of around 20 to 30 young men rioted and caused havoc in the Kronogården district of Trollhattan. Police say the youths were armed with rocks and fireworks, which they used to smash up a bus shelter. When police arrived on the scene, the gang attacked them with rocks that were so large they disabled their police car, Nyheter Idag reports.

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Carlsbad to photograph every car entering city - The San Diego Union-Tribune
Carlsbad is expanding its use of automated license plate readers into a system that aims to collect the registration information of every vehicle that enters the city.

The $1 million Police Department project — which will add stationary cameras at 14 key Carlsbad intersections, creating a virtual gateway at the city’s borders — was approved by the City Council last week, sparking outrage over privacy rights and government control from several residents and one council member.

Four council members, however, said they’re confident the information can be kept secure and that the system will increase safety for residents and police officers. They also said it may deter criminals from breaking the law in the city.

“To me, $1 million is a drop in the bucket when you are trying to protect 100,000 or more people, and everyone who comes into our city every day,” said Councilman Keith Blackburn, a retired police officer. “I don’t think this ... is going to violate privacy.”

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Police: Illegal Alien Suspects Charged After Allegedly Raping and Sodomizing 14-Year-Old Maryland High School Student - Breitbart
Two suspects reportedly in the U.S. illegally allegedly raped and sodomized a 14-year-old Maryland high school student on Thursday after trapping her in a bathroom stall during the school day, according to police.

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Exclusive: North Korea has no fear of U.S. sanctions move, will pursue nuclear arms - envoy | Reuters
North Korea has nothing to fear from any U.S. move to broaden sanctions aimed at cutting it off from the global financial system and will pursue "acceleration" of its nuclear and missile programs, a Pyongyang envoy told Reuters on Tuesday.

This includes developing a "pre-emptive first strike capability" and an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), said Choe Myong Nam, deputy ambassador at the DPRK (North Korean) mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

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One-third of Americans say they’d have trouble coming up with an emergency $2,000 - MarketWatch
About a third of consumers say they would have trouble coming up with an emergency $2,000, according to a new study released Monday.

The New York Fed, as part of its survey of consumer expectations, has begun releasing the answers to questions about financial fragility. The study found around 67% said they were likely to come up with $2,000 in a month, meaning nearly 33% said they weren’t likely.

The differences were most pronounced by credit score — only 11% of those with a credit score of 760 and above said they would have difficulty, versus 64% of those with a credit score of 680 and below.

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Kiwi transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard s win causes stir among female Aussie competitors - Yahoo7
A Kiwi weightlifter has made history as the first transgender athlete to represent New Zealand and come away with a win, however the victory has been slammed by other competitors.

Laurel Hubbard, 39, won the women's over 90kg division at the Australian International competition in Melbourne on Sunday, but the win has caused a stir with some believing she had an unfair advantage.

Her combined total of 268kg was nearly 20kg better than Samoan runner-up Iuniarra Sipaia, with another 20kg back to the next lifter in the field.

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