News You Can Use

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Grandmother Stops Another School Shooting Day Before Florida Massacre « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

According to police in Everett, Washington, the grandmother of Joshua Alexander O’Connor called 911 after finding disturbing journal entries that described how the 18-year-old was planning to attack his high school. “Officers were also told the grandson had a rifle stored in a guitar case. As officers reviewed copies of the journal, they were alarmed at the statements and detailed plans to shoot students and use homemade explosive devices at ACES High School,” a statement from Everett police read.

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Bruce Ohr Hid Fusion GPS Payments | The Daily Caller

Justice Department official Bruce Ohr did not disclose Fusion GPS was paying his wife
Ohr was demoted from his post after the information emerged
Willfully falsifying government ethics documents can result in jail time

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Only 36% effective.

Flu Vaccine Less Effective Than Earlier Estimates - WSJ

This year’s flu vaccine is slightly less effective overall than earlier estimates but still reduces a person’s chance of contracting the flu by a little over a third, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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This is just wrong.

Transgender Woman Breast-Feeds Baby After Hospital Induces Lactation - The New York Times

When a transgender woman told doctors at a hospital in New York that she wanted to breast-feed her pregnant partner’s baby, they put her on a regimen of drugs that included an anti-nausea medication licensed in Britain and Canada but banned in the United States.

Within a month, according to the journal Transgender Health, the woman, 30, who was born male, was producing droplets of milk. Within three months — two weeks before the baby’s due date — she had increased her production to eight ounces of milk a day.

In the end, the study showed, “she was able to achieve sufficient breast milk volume to be the sole source of nourishment for her child for six weeks,” according to the journal.

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CIA Argues Public Can't See Classified I | The Daily Caller

In a motion filed in New York federal court, the CIA claimed that limited disclosures to reporters do not waive national security exemptions to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies frequently deny records requests on the basis of protecting sensitive national security information, one of nine exemptions written into the federal FOIA law.

The case stems from lawsuit against the CIA by New York-based independent journalist Adam Johnson, who had used FOIA to obtain emails between the agency’s public information office and selected reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and The New York Times. The emails the CIA provided to Johnson were redacted, leading him to question why he was not allowed to see the same information that had been given to uncleared reporters.

Johnson challenged the redaction in court, arguing that the CIA, once it has selectively disclosed information to uncleared reporters, cannot claim the same information is protected by a FOIA exemption.

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Far-Left Group Calls For Murdering Republicans as Revenge For Florida School Shooting » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

“Dear Crazed Shooters, The GOP has frequent baseball practice. You really wanna be remembered, that’s how you do it. Signed, Americans tired of our politicians bathing in the blood of the innocent for a few million dollars from the terrorist organization NRA,” states one of the posts.

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Sales of bulletproof backpacks soar after Florida shooting | Daily Mail Online

Sales of Bullet Blocker's bags have seen a huge increase in sales since the attack 
Joe Curran, the company's owner, said many of the bags were going to Florida
There are a range of different bulletproof backpacks available from $200-$500
Bullet Blocker also has a range luxury range, which includes Gucci diaper bags

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Sheriff in Florida shooting calls for power to detain over social media - NBC News

The county sheriff in charge of investigating the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, pleaded with lawmakers on Thursday to give police and doctors more power to involuntarily hospitalize people for psychiatric evaluation over violent and threatening social media posts.

The sheriff, Scott Israel, of Broward County, described the accused shooter's social media posts as "very disturbing" at a news conference and asked state and federal legislators to expand the state's Baker Act, which says a person can be detained against their will for up to 72 hours under certain circumstances.

The accused, Nikolas Cruz, 19, has confessed to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday, authorities said. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Israel said the Baker Act allows law enforcement or medical professionals to confine a person involuntarily, "but you have to have a reason, you have to be able to articulate that they're a threat to themselves or a threat to someone else."

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Tax Amazon, Facebook and Apple more for UK universal pay – study | Society | The Guardian

Britain could raise new taxes on Amazon, Facebook and Apple to give every citizen under the age of 55 as much as £10,000 in a form of universal basic income (UBI), according to a study, helping to counter the growing risk of job losses from automation and artificial intelligence.

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Sales of bulletproof backpacks soar after Florida shooting | Daily Mail Online

Sales of Bullet Blocker's bags have seen a huge increase in sales since the attack 
Joe Curran, the company's owner, said many of the bags were going to Florida
There are a range of different bulletproof backpacks available from $200-$500
Bullet Blocker also has a range luxury range, which includes Gucci diaper bags

I checked into this a while ago, I think it hit the news that a private school in florida required its students to have a bullet proof back pack.

If I recall, the packs are only expected to stop handgun rounds up to 40-calibler, they are not expected to stop rifle rounds. They are also small, and only able to cover a small area even on a child. But parents are freaked out about shootings and want to protect their kids so I see why the packs are selling quickly.

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FEC war on Drudge, internet, goes 'underground'

Democratic efforts on the Federal Election Commission to punish media and stifle voices like the Drudge Report and Fox are going “underground” after failing in public, according to the agency’s outgoing defender of media and digital outlets.

“The debate has gone underground, it has not ceased,” said Lee Goodman, who fought off several attempts to stifle outlets like Fox, Drudge and conservative media including film makers.

“The desire to regulate Americans' political speech on the internet remains alive and well here at the commission and now even in Congress,” added Goodman, whose last day on the FEC is Friday.

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In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a lobster

A law goes into effect March 1 that bans the common cooking method of tossing a live lobster into a big pot of boiling water, quickly killing the tasty crustacean. That practice is being outlawed because the Swiss say it's cruel and lobsters can sense pain.

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Maxine Waters Attended Farrakhan Speech | The Daily Caller

Waters attended a Nation of Islam Convention where Louis Farrakhan defended Palestinian suicide bombers
The Nation of Islam believes white people are inherently inferior to black people
Farrakhan is an anti-Semite who called Jews “Satanic” and said Hitler was “a very great man” 
Waters’ convention appearance is just the latest tie to emerge between Democrats and the Nation of Islam.

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Georgia school to drug-test students by using hair samples

COLUMBUS, Ga.
A private school in east Georgia intends to start drug-testing its oldest students.

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports that Brookstone School in Columbus recently announced that the drug-testing of students in grades 8-12 will be voluntary next school year - and then mandatory in succeeding years.

Brookstone plans to use students' hair samples which are sent to Psychemedics Corp. to conduct the testing, the newspaper reported. The Massachusetts-based company would then provide test results within a few days.

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Silicon Valley Explores A New Investment: Your Home - WSJ

Some well-funded startups have an unusual pitch for homeowners strapped for cash: Let’s own this house together.

A handful of companies, including those backed by marquee Silicon Valley names such as Andreessen Horowitz and Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic organization, are ...

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Blackhawks fans ejected for racist taunts at Capitals player | WGN-TV

CHICAGO – Four Blackhawks fans may never be allowed back in the United Center again.

According to the Washington Post, the group of hecklers taunted Capitals winger Devante Smith-Pelly while he was in the penalty box with chants of “basketball, basketball, basketball.”

Smith-Pelly happens to be black.

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America No. 1 enemy at World Government Summit

DeNiro, for his part, launched into an anti-American tirade by saying, “I flew here last night from a backward country, a place where science once reigned and lately has been replaced by ignorance.” He drew applause after predicting that Trump would be voted out in the 2020 election. Last year, at the summit he said that Trump has caused America to lose its position as a global ambassador in the fight against global warming because “we have a leader who’s not leading, that doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Such comments, apparently, were enough to get him re-invited this year to the fabulous resort that resembles, according to one observer, “a 12th-century Middle Eastern fortress, crisscrossed by picturesque canals and bordered by two kilometers of private Persian Gulf beachfront, it feels almost too opulent to be real.”

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Goldman Sachs warns US spending could push up rates and debt levels

The U.S. economy won't be able to count on the pump-priming from tax cuts for very long, Goldman Sachs said on Sunday.
Federal spending, rising yields and surging debt needs are a growing worry, the firm said.
Deficit spending is approaching 'uncharted territory', Goldman said.

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Inside the world's strangest micronations

The world's newest micronation has half a million prospective citizens, runs on crytocurrency donations, and lays claim to a disputed four-mile sandbank on the Danube.

Liberland, founded by Czech economist turned politician Vít Jedlička in 2015, has low-tax, libertarian ideals (its motto is "live and let live") and is a very much a micronation for the 21st century. All business is conducted by email, 100 key representatives in various countries communicate via Skype, it accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum and is about to start distributing its own digital currency.  

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Fake videos are on the rise. As they become more realistic, seeing shouldn't always be believing

All it takes is a single selfie.

From that static image, an algorithm can quickly create a moving, lifelike avatar: a video not recorded, but fabricated from whole cloth by software.

With more time, Pinscreen, the Los Angeles start-up behind the technology, believes its renderings will become so accurate they will defy reality.

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‘No Cash’ Signs Everywhere Has Sweden Worried It's Gone Too Far - Bloomberg

“No cash accepted” signs are becoming an increasingly common sight in shops and eateries across Sweden as payments go digital and mobile.

But the pace at which cash is vanishing has authorities worried. A broad review of central bank legislation that’s under way is now taking a special look at the situation, with an interim report due as early as the summer.

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State election officials across country returning to paper ballots - The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON — Hoping to counter waves of Russian Twitter bots, fake social media accounts, and hacking attacks aimed at undermining American democracy, state election officials around the country are seizing on an old-school strategy: paper ballots.

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The Case for Impeaching Clarence Thomas

It’s time to reexamine the evidence that Clarence Thomas lied to get onto the Supreme Court — and to talk seriously about impeachment.