News You Can Use

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Wow

Australian birds have weaponized fire because what we really need now is something else to make us afraid | National Post

What he saw sounds now like something out of a fairy tale or dark myth. A whistling kite, wings spread, held a burning twig in its talons. It flew about 20 metres ahead of Eussen and dropped the ember into the brittle grass.

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Rental cars, motorcycles: Supreme Court justices defend privacy rights

WASHINGTON — A heroin-toting, unauthorized rental car driver and the owner of a stolen motorcycle that twice eluded police got some love from the Supreme Court Tuesday.

In two cases testing the reach of the Fourth Amendment's privacy protection, a majority of justices appeared to side with the suspects over the government when their constitutional rights were threatened.

They were more united when it came to Terrence Byrd, who was stopped by police in Pennsylvania while driving a car rented by his fiancée. A search of the trunk produced 49 bricks of heroin and body armor — but without a warrant.

Justice Department officials argued successfully in lower courts that because Byrd was not authorized to drive the car, he lacked any expectation of privacy. That didn't sit well with most of the justices.

"Even if you don't have an expectation of privacy in the trunk, you've claimed an expectation of privacy in the property," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. "And absent probable cause, there's no right to search. So why are we here?"

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Connecticut city's elected body eliminates gender pronouns - StamfordAdvocate

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — The legislative body in Stamford, Connecticut, has removed gender pronouns from its written rules.

The Board of Representatives voted last week to remove "he/she" and "his/her" from its rules of order, replacing them with specific titles, including president and clerk, the Advocate newspaper reported.

The measure passed unanimously with one abstention.

The change was proposed by three Democrats elected to the 40-member board in November, including Raven Matherne, the state's first openly transgender elected official. It does not change the way the rules are followed or carried out, she said.

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This year your first job interview might be with a robot

LinkedIn’s new report surveyed 8,800+ recruiters and hiring managers on how these trends would impact hiring in 2018. Those polled indicated that AI is gaining steam because it’s a timesaver (67%), removes human bias (43%), and delivers the best candidate matches (31%). More than half of survey respondents also found AI to be most effective for sourcing candidates (58%), screening (56%), and nurturing candidates (55%).

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Islam could be the second-largest religion in the US by 2040 - CNNPolitics

The Pew Research Center combined studies they conducted in 2007, 2011 and 2017 with yearly data from the US Census (which does not track religious affiliation) to put together a portrait of the future of Muslims in America.
According to their data, the Muslim population is growing at an accelerated rate, and will more than double from an estimated 3.45 million in 2017 to an estimated 8.1 million in 2050. In the meantime, Muslims are expected to surpass Jews as the second-largest religious group.

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Surveillance and Privacy Debate Reaches Pivotal Moment in Congress - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A yearslong debate over National Security Agency surveillance and protections for Americans’ privacy rights will reach a climactic moment on Thursday as the House of Representatives takes up legislation to extend a program of warrantless spying on internet and phone networks that traces back to the Sept. 11 attacks.

There is little doubt that Congress will extend an expiring statute, known as Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, that permits the government to collect without a warrant from American firms, like Google and AT&T, the emails and other communications of foreigners abroad — even when they are talking to Americans.

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UNDERCOVER VIDEO: Sr Network Security Engineer Reveals Twitter Ready to Give Trump’s Private DMs to DOJ – Project Veritas

Undercover Video of Twitter Engineer Clay Haynes Saying “We’re more than happy to help the DOJ with their little investigation”
Content Disclosed to DOJ Includes: “Even the ones he’s deleted, any direct messages”
Engineer is Self-Proclaimed “Bleeding-Heart Liberal” Stating “It comes with the territory [at Twitter]”
Goes on to Explain Additional “Big Brotherish” Practices at Twitter

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Jeff Bezos: where the $106bn man belongs on the all-time rich list | Business | The Guardian

Just 10 days into 2018 and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and a thorn in the side of Donald Trump, has seen his personal wealth soar by $6bn (£4.4bn).

The man at the helm of the sprawling online empire – which accounted for an extraordinary 89% of online Christmas trading at big US retailers – Bezos is now worth $106bn, enough to cover Britain’s budget deficit twice over and still have change.

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The dawn of American socialism

The Russian revolution was the most utopian left-wing project in history, and it was a cataclysmic disaster. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many Western observers concluded that the old Marxist dream was dead forever.

But they spoke too soon. History is not over, and with the absence of any Soviet competition, Western capitalist countries — and especially the United States — have become hideously unequal, misery-ridden, and economically stagnant. In many ways, socialists in the early 21st century stand just about where they were in the early 20th century: politically marginalized, but leveling an economic critique that becomes more convincing with each passing year.

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Top U.S. Government Computers Linked to Revenge-Porn Site

Users connecting from Senate, Navy, and Executive Branch computers bragged about ‘wins,’ or nonconsensual nude photos, posted on Anon-IB, a revenge-porn epicenter.

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Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark - Bloomberg

At least two dozen times, the San Francisco headquarters locked down equipment in foreign offices to shield files from police raids.

In May 2015 about 10 investigators for the Quebec tax authority burst into Uber Technologies Inc.’s office in Montreal. The authorities believed Uber had violated tax laws and had a warrant to collect evidence. Managers on-site knew what to do, say people with knowledge of the event.

Like managers at Uber’s hundreds of offices abroad, they’d been trained to page a number that alerted specially trained staff at company headquarters in San Francisco. When the call came in, staffers quickly remotely logged off every computer in the Montreal office, making it practically impossible for the authorities to retrieve the company records they’d obtained a warrant to collect. The investigators left without any evidence.

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UN pushes countries to open up migration despite US boycott

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Governments that crack down on migrants are only harming themselves, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday ahead of UN talks on a global response to migration boycotted by the United States.

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EXCLUSIVE: Facebook Dives into Home Device Market with Video Chat Product Named "Portal" on Cheddar

Facebook is about to jump into the consumer hardware business in a big way with a video chat device named "Portal," which will put it in direct competition with Amazon’s hugely popular line of Echo voice-controlled devices, Cheddar has learned.

The device is designed to work in the home and represents Facebook’s first serious foray into selling consumer hardware, people familiar with the matter said. Rather than position the device as a smart assistant akin to Amazon’s Echo speakers, Facebook intends to pitch Portal as a way for families and friends to stay connected through video chatting and other social features.

Facebook plans a formal product introduction in early May at its annual developer conference and hopes to ship the device in the second half of 2018.

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New, Higher Tolls for 2018

Get ready, drivers. With gas tax revenue stagnant and transportation funds scarce, states are turning to toll roads in 2018 to fill treasuries and manage traffic — despite outrage from motorists and questions about the efficiency of tolls.

The full list of new tolls is hard to track, but at least a half-dozen states from Florida to Colorado are slapping tolls on roads that used to be free or building toll-only lanes this year, and many more are expected to do so next year. It all shows how, despite the nation’s relatively robust economy, even the most basic state services — providing roadways, bridges and tunnels — are still being squeezed.

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Trump hits Amazon with another internet tax threat

Trump reiterates concerns about the post office as it struggles to keep up with online orders.
There's been speculation that the president's shots at Amazon are really aimed at CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.

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House votes to renew NSA spying, rejects reform push | TheHill

In a victory for the Trump administration, the House on Thursday approved legislation to renew government surveillance powers while voting down new limits on how authorities can use the information that is collected.

Just a few hours before the vote, President Trump roiled the waters by sending out a tweet that appeared to contradict his own administration’s opposition to the changes, which were offered by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.).

That amendment failed by a vote of 233-183.

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Sam's Club is closing and converting dozens of locations,

Sam's Club, the membership warehouse owned by retail giant Walmart, is shutting down or converting 63 stores, a Walmart official confirmed Thursday.

Of those locations, about 50 will be going out of business for good. Roughly 10 of those locations are closing their doors as soon as Thursday, while the remainder will be shuttered over the next three to four weeks, the Walmart official said.

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SC woman returns from trip to find another family living in her home | The State

Katherine Lang arrived to her new Beaufort home Sunday to find someone else’s clothes churning in the washing machine and her dishes stored away.

Dogs and a cat roamed Lang’s home, and two women were talking inside. A couch rested on the back porch.

Another family was moving in.

“I said ‘What are you doing in my house?’ ” Lang said. “It became clear to me what happened.”

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Army Rips Out Chinese-Made Surveillance Cameras Overlooking U.S. Base - WSJ

The U.S. Army said it removed surveillance cameras made by a Chinese state-backed manufacturer from a domestic military base, while a congressional committee plans to hold a hearing this month into whether small businesses face cybersecurity risks from using the equipment.

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Food riots grip western Venezuela, mob reportedly slaughters...

SAN CRISTOBAL/BARINAS, Venezuela, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Hungry mobs ransacked a food collection center, and a supermarket in Venezuela's western Andean state of Merida on Thursday and reportedly even slaughtered cattle grazing in a field as unrest over food shortages spread through the country.

An opposition lawmaker from Merida, Carlos Paparoni, said four people had died and 10 were injured in the chaos over the last two days, but he did not specify the circumstances.

Four years of recession and the world's highest inflation have plunged millions of Venezuelans into poverty, and President Nicolas Maduro's authoritarian socialist regime faces mounting unrest.

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GM Drops the Steering Wheel and Gives Robot Driver Control - Bloomberg

Next year, General Motors Co. will no longer need an engineer in the front seat babysitting the robot brain that controls its self-driving Chevrolet Bolt. The steering wheel and pedals will be gone, giving total control to the machine.

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Pew: US media bias ranks worst in the world

Americans on both sides of the political aisle believe the media does a poor job covering political issues fairly, according to a blockbuster new survey of media consumption in 38 nations.

What’s more, the Pew Research Center’s study found that supporters of President Trump believe the media is doing a worse job covering politics than the supporters of any of the other international political leaders in countries surveyed.

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'We're losing hope': Facebook tells publishers big change is coming to News Feed - Digiday

The end is nigh. Facebook is planning a major change to its news feed, starting as early as next week, that will decisively favor user content and effectively deprioritize publishers’ content, according to three publishers that have been briefed by the platform ahead of the move.

Those who have been briefed say that under the new test, Facebook told them it will favor content that’s shared by users or otherwise actively engaged with. The thinking goes, according to those briefed, that Facebook believes prioritizing content that’s acted on will reduce the occurrence of fake and offensive content in the news feed.

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"Once again, Donald Trump has proven to his supporters that he is unpredictable and cannot be trusted to keep his promises. During the campaign he promised to build a wall across the entire southern border and to send illegals home, including adults brought here as children by illegal immigrant parents. Trump promised to undo Barack Obama’s illegal executive order granting temporary amnesty to illegal children (a.k.a. DACA) and Trump won the election, in part, by promising to end it. He did so, sort of, in September 2017 by ending the program but deferred it for six months to give the immigration lobby time to pressure Congress to make the program permanent. That time is approaching and already Trump is saying he will “sign anything sent to him,” and that it is going to be a “bill of love.” This kind of soft thinking and false compassion gets Trump into trouble every time some entitlement comes into question. He also continues to compromise on the border wall, as he agrees to a shorter and less effective version that won’t work—in the vain hope that Democrats will go along." (Joel Skousen, Editor, World Affairs Brief)

As much as I oppose the influx of refugees and illegal immigrants, I feel that they are here because we (Americans in general) did not recognize that the mass migration we are witnessing has been and is still being fomented by latter-day gadiantons whose purpose in so doing is to undermine America's culture, voting demographics, and pave the way for America becoming a centralized, socialist country, ripe for subservience to a global government. I wish it were not happening, but now that the illegals and refugees are here, I think we are obligated to at least treat them with courtesy.