News You Can Use

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Drug dealers using Facebook to target children | Daily Mail Online

Scores of criminals are freely touting for business on Facebook and other sites
Many are offering cannabis for sale while one dealer even offered to sell cocaine 
Social media sites were accused of failing to shut down ‘blatant’ law-breaking
Calls for tougher sanctions over failure tech giants' failure to stop criminality

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What's the Matter with California? | Trending

Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That’s according to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income.

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Iowa lawsuit pits gay rights against religious freedom

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The University of Iowa is caught up in a legal fight with a conservative Christian student group that denied a leadership position to a student who is gay.

The case pits a university policy barring discrimination based on sexual orientation against the religious beliefs of a 10-member group called Business Leaders in Christ. The group sued after the state's flagship university in Iowa City revoked its campus registration in November.

The group says its membership is open to everyone, but that its leaders must affirm a statement of faith that rejects homosexuality. The university says it respects the right of students, faculty and staff to practice the religion of their choice but does not tolerate discrimination of any kind.

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Matt Drudge: world's most powerful journalist - Telegraph

Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist – though his detractors even deny that is his occupation - in the world.

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Soda Tax Sticker Shock Grips Seattle | Trending

Costco, famous for selling products in bulk quantities, faces especially stiff price increases. On the previously mentioned pallet of 35 bottles of Gatorade, a list price of $15.99 is taxed $10.34, with a total cost of $26.33. Signs all over the Seattle stores list the tax separately, and then have another sign offering solutions to the consumer:

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Amazon´s Echo Spot is coming to the UK later this month | Daily Mail Online

The latest edition to the tech giant's family of devices is powered by Alexa
Each device has a camera and microphone for making video calls
The camera will probably be facing directly at the user's bed
The Echo Spot, which will cost £119.99 ($129) will be shipped on 24th January

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Workers at Apple Supplier Describe Harsh Conditions - Bloomberg

At a Catcher Technology Co. manufacturing complex in the Chinese industrial city of Suqian, about six hours’ drive from Shanghai, workers stand for up to 10 hours a day in hot workshops slicing and blasting iPhone casings for Apple Inc., handling noxious chemicals sometimes without proper gloves or masks.

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Temporary trailers for homeless people planned on downtown city lot – LA Times

Los Angeles city leaders are planning to house dozens of homeless people in trailers on a city-owned downtown lot as a possible model for citywide temporary shelters.

A proposal that will be submitted to the City Council on Tuesday calls for installing five trailers on a parking lot at Arcadia and Alameda streets by the beginning of summer.

The trailers would house about 67 people and target the homeless population that sleeps on the sidewalks in the area around the historic El Pueblo site off of Main Street.

The shelter would operate for three years with the hope that residents placed there would move on to permanent housing within six months.

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New California Declares Independence From Rest Of State « CBS13 | CBS Sacramento

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — With the reading of their own version of a Declaration of Independence, founders of the state of New California took the first steps to what they hope will eventually lead to statehood.

To be clear, they don’t want to leave the United States, just California.

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What does it mean when a news article appears today saying that the Aztecs died from an eye-bleeding disease, and on the same day there is a report of an eye-bleeding fever in Africa?



Aztecs were wiped out by horror ‘eye-bleeding’ disease that killed 15million in just five years, scientists reveal

Experts say an epidemic called cocoliztli was to blame after finding DNA evidence on the teeth of long-dead victims



Fever outbreak in Africa CONFIRMED by Ugandan health ministry | Daily Star

Uganda’s health ministry has today finally admitted it is facing the risk of a large-scale explosion of the viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF).

VHF causes victims to suffer a burning fever before beginning to bleed from orifices including their eyes, anuses and mouths.

It comes after a girl, nine, was reportedly killed by the infection Uganda, and three people died in neighbouring South Sudan of similar symptoms.

Uganda health minster Sarah Opendi confirmed emergency response teams are now being deployed to the districts of Nakaseke and Luweero.

She also identified the mystery disease, saying tests have revealed the infection is Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF).

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U.S. oil industry set to break record, upend global trade

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Surging shale production is poised to push U.S. oil output to more than 10 million barrels per day - toppling a record set in 1970 and crossing a threshold few could have imagined even a decade ago.

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Oakland Supermarket Clerk Fired For Trying To Stop Shoplifter « CBS San Francisco

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — A community is rallying around an East Bay grocery store clerk who got fired for trying to stop a crime. People can’t understand why trying to do the right thing got him canned.

When residents of Oakland’s Montclair District found out a beloved Lucky store employee of 17 years was fired for stopping a late night shoplifter they were outraged.

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Welcome to the neighbourhood. Have you read the terms of service? | CBC News

How we think about privacy today might not be the best way to deal with data collection in a smart city

Anyone who's used an app or online service is probably familiar with the concept of consent. It's a legal requirement that companies or public organizations that want your electronic personal information should not only ask first, but explain in detail what they want to collect, what they plan to do with it, who they might share it with and why.

But in a smart city, consent "goes out the window straight away," says Murakami Wood. It's already hard enough to get people to read the terms of service for the apps they use, and experts are skeptical we could expect any better of someone crossing into the boundary of a smart city neighbourhood.

Smart cities, after all, take data collection and analysis to a new, previously unimagined extreme. And with so many different sensors and so much data being collected and analyzed, how could anyone be expected to understand, much less consent to it all?

"You can't rely on legislation," says Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario from 1997 to 2014. She's being paid by Sidewalk Labs to advise the company on its approach, which sounds straightforward enough: Don't collect any personal information at all.

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Margaret Atwood faces feminist backlash on social media over #MeToo | Books | The Guardian

She raised the possibility that the answer could leave women divided. “In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.”

The 78-year-old author of The Handmaid’s Tale drew a parallel between these concerns and those who accused her of being a “bad feminist” after she signed an open letter last year calling for due process for a University of British Columbia professor facing allegations of sexual misconduct.

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How China Infiltrated U.S. Classrooms - POLITICO Magazine

Even as they face criticism, Chinese government-run educational institutes have continued their forward march on college campuses across the United States.

Last year, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte made an announcement to great fanfare: The university would soon open a branch of the Confucius Institute, the Chinese government-funded educational institutions that teach Chinese language, culture and history. The Confucius Institute would “help students be better equipped to succeed in an increasingly globalized world,” says Nancy Gutierrez, UNC Charlotte’s dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and “broaden the University’s outreach and support for language instruction and cultural opportunities in the Charlotte community,” according to a press release.

But the Confucius Institutes’ goals are a little less wholesome and edifying than they sound—and this is by the Chinese government’s own account. A 2011 speech by a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing laid out the case: “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad,” Li Changchun said. “It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”

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At least 33 human skulls found in western Mexico, official says

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Police have discovered at least 33 human skulls buried in western Mexico, authorities said on Tuesday, the latest grisly find in a region that has suffered from increasing violence between warring drug cartels.

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Counterfeit Cash Making Its Way Around New York City, Cops Say « CBS New York

Police say phony bills are finding their way into wallets and cash registers across the city. Inside Iggy’s on the Upper East Side, the word ‘FAKE’ is clearly written across a counterfeit 20 dollar bill, but the bar manager wishes it was always that easy to spot one.

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Ohio State course reprimands white heterosexual masculinity - The College Fix

Masculinity simultaneously harms yet privileges men, syllabus states 

A class taught this spring at Ohio State University will review a parade of reasons why white heterosexual masculinity is allegedly problematic, tackling the topic from the constructs of racial issues, bullying, pop culture, societal expectations and much more, according to its syllabus.

The course, “Be a Man! Masculinities, Race and Nation,” includes a variety of readings to that end, including its required textbook “Dude, You’re a Fag!” by C.J. Pascoe, which analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process, but sexual one, its Amazon description states.

Other assigned reading excerpts include: “Masculinity as Homophobia” by Michael Kimmel; “Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity” by Jackson Katz; “Dude Sex: Dudes Who Have Sex with Dudes” by Jane Ward; “Looking for My Penis” by Richard Fung; “Sodomy in the New World” by Jonathan Goldberg; and “Teaching Men’s Anal Pleasure” by Susan Stiritz.

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Bitcoin plunges 25 per cent amid South Korea, China fears

THE cryptocurrency market has lost $US206 billion overnight in what traders are describing as a “cryptocalypse”, with bitcoin heading back towards its $US10,000 milestone first reached last November.

But it was smaller currencies including ripple, ethereum and bitcoin cash that were the hardest hit in the latest sell-off, which was sparked by fresh fears of a crackdown on virtual currencies by governments in South Korea and China.

At the time of writing, ripple was down nearly 50 per cent on the previous day, ethereum had lost nearly 34 per cent of its value, bitcoin cash was down nearly 37 per cent and bitcoin was down 27 per cent to just under $US10,200.

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FBI Sting Operation Nets Arrest of L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Accused of Selling Drugs, Offering Protection to Dealers | KTLA

Kenneth Collins, a 15-year veteran of the department, and three other men were arrested by undercover FBI agents after they arrived in Pasadena to provide security for the transport of dozens of pounds of drugs — nearly 45 pounds of cocaine and more than 13 pounds of methamphetamine, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

The other men arrested are David Easter, a 51-year-old Hyde Park resident; Grant Valencia, a 34-year-old who lives in Pomona; and Maurice Desi Font, 56, of South Los Angeles.

While all four will face charges, the filing makes it clear that 50-year-old Collins was the ringleader of the operation. For months, he had been to subject of an undercover FBI sting that sought to document his acceptance of bribes in exchange for protecting drug traffickers, prosecutors said.

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Cape Town could become first major city in world to run out of water after 90-day warning | The Independent

South African city's mayor warns supply will run dry in April on 'day zero'

Cape Town may become the first large city in the world to run out of water, as officials warn there are fewer than 90 days left before the supply runs dry.

The city’s mayor Patricia De Lille said residents had until 22 April until “day zero”, when authorities have estimated the water supply will be finished if residents do not scale back their usage.

As a result, officials have introduced strict measures to limit the consumption of available water, including capping usage at 87 litres per person per day.

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In Venezuela, money has stopped working - The Washington Post

And yet I can’t stop thinking about it, because strewn about in the trash are at least a dozen 20-bolivar bills, small-denomination currency now so worthless even looters didn’t think it was worth their time to stop and pick them up.

The photo stopped me dead in my tracks. In theory, according to the “official” exchange rate, which long ago lost even a hint of connection with reality, each of those bills is worth $2. In fact, as Venezuela sinks deeper and deeper into the first hyperinflation the Western Hemisphere has seen in a generation, bolivar banknotes have come to be worth basically nothing: Each bill is worth about $0.0001 at the current exchange rate, meaning you need to have 100 of them to equal one penny.

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Prices are now rising more than 80 percent per month, according to the opposition-led National Assembly’s Finance Committee. (The government itself stopped publishing official inflation data long ago.) At that rate, prices double every 34 days or so. Salaries lag far behind, leaving more and more of the country to face outright hunger. Thus, the looting.

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Brooklyn Plans To Roll Out Mobile Shower Service For The Homeless « CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — In a new plan to tackle the homelessness problem in New York, a mobile shower service is coming to Brooklyn to help people living on the streets get clean.

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Fear of the Federal Government in the Ranchlands of Oregon

Two years after the standoff at the Malheur Refuge, many people in the region remain convinced that their way of life is being trampled.

I pulled up next to a minivan in the parking lot of Americas Best Value Inn. Three women stepped out. The driver wore American flag earrings and a Christmas sweater, her hair piled on her head. She was a candy-company representative in Boise and had driven to John Day with a trunk full of Mentos. “What’s going on with the media is absolute crap,” the driver said. We walked down the street, to the Outpost restaurant, and over lunch, she described what was happening in eastern Oregon as a “truth insurrection.” One of her companions, a delicate, elderly lady with long white hair, told me that she attended protests during the federal siege at Ruby Ridge, followed the killings at Waco and took an interest in the Bundys during the occupation. All three believed the government could come to their homes anytime and shoot them. “Someone please needs to get this story right,” the elderly lady said. When I showed her my tape recorder, she gave me a high five. She figured I couldn’t twist her words now. “Sometimes it happens,” she said. “The truth will end up in The New York Times. But your editors will probably mess it up.” I asked what truth she had in mind. “Well, for one thing,” she said, “LaVoy was not ‘killed’; he was ‘murdered.’ ”

The meeting was up the road at the Grant County Fairgrounds, in a building called the Trowbridge Pavilion, where every summer local residents gathered to show prizewinning livestock. The parking lot was crowded with pickup trucks mounted with Don’t Tread on Me flags and decorated in stickers that read, “LaVoy” or “Not Guilty.” The crowd was all white, a mix of ranchers, farmers, loggers, miners, firefighters and hard-right Mormons from Idaho, Utah and Arizona. There were as many women as men, lots of families and children. People wore T-shirts that read #libertyrevolution. A few dozen self-proclaimed militia members, mostly representatives from the Oath Keepers and the Oregon Three Percenters, were there, as well as members of the Finicum family and the Bundy family. I recognized occupiers from their mug shots. A few people carried guns to show their support of the Second Amendment. Many had traveled from out of state, and some had driven through the night, on bad roads and through dangerous weather, and spent money on hotels and food they could not really afford, they said. Why? They told me their livelihood was at stake.

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LaVoy’s widow, Jeanette Finicum, had thick white hair with a fringe of bangs. Her loose black T-shirt read, “It matters how you stand,” a quote from LaVoy. A pin near her breast read, “I am the virus,” referencing a quote from Oregon’s longtime Democratic senator Ron Wyden, who described the ideology of the occupiers as a virus after they were arrested. She was a soft-spoken mother of 12, and at one point, she stepped onstage to share a video montage that included images of armed federal agents and burning cars, followed by “peaceful” images of cowboys, including LaVoy and Ryan Bundy. “I ask: Who are the real terrorists?” she said to the crowd.

KrisAnne Hall, a 48-year-old lawyer and former prosecutor, was the evening’s keynote speaker. Hall averages 260 speaking engagements a year; the Southern Poverty Law Center once included her on its list of 998 anti-government groups and figures in the United States. She teaches that almost every federal agency, other than the military, is unconstitutional. “Do you think the federal government is out of control?” she asked. “We need to wake up. Nothing needs to happen except America needs to have a revolution of the mind.”

Kate Dalley of a Utah affiliate of Fox News Radio wore heels and a red trench. “I want to talk about truth in media,” she told the crowd. “I know you laugh when I say that, because it’s kind of an oxymoron.” The media, she told us, was controlled and infiltrated, and the scripts were already written by the powers that be. She talked about the history of journalists working for the C.I.A. “They included journalists from The New York Times, Time magazine, which was already bought and sold by the elite anyway, The Washington Post, TV networks like CBS.” Robin Olson leaned forward and gave me a pat on the arm. “It will be O.K.,” she said. “We still like you.”

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Worst-case global warming scenarios not credible: study | AFP.com

Earth's surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions.