Colt Suspends Production of AR-15 and Other Rifles for Civilians
September 19th, 2019Via: CBS:
Gunmaker Colt Manufacturing said Thursday it is temporarily halting production of rifles for the civilian market, including the popular AR-15.
In a statement, Colt CEO Dennis Veilleux said the company is not permanently ending production of the semi-automatic weapon, but believes there is already an adequate supply of such rifles on the market.
“The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity,” Veilleux said.
…
Colt will instead concentrate on fulfilling military and law enforcement contracts with its rifle manufacturing. Veilleux said the company has been awarded “significant” military and law enforcement contracts.
“Currently, these high-volume contracts are absorbing all of Colt’s manufacturing capacity for rifles,” he said.
Daimler Won’t Develop Any New Internal Combustion Engines, Focus Is Now on Electric Vehicles
September 19th, 2019Via: Electrek:
After reigning in the auto industry as the powertrain of choice for a century, the internal combustion engine is finally dying.
Now even Daimler says that it is stopping development of new internal combustion engines to focus on electric cars.
The German automaker whose namesake, Gottlieb Daimler, is credited for having invented the prototype of the modern gasoline engine recently released its latest generation internal combustion engine and it might be its last.
According to German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, Daimler development chief Markus Schaefer said that they currently have no plans to develop a next-generation combustion engine and they are focusing on new electric powertrains.
While they will not invest in the development of new combustion engines, Schaefer reportedly noted that they still might work on some specific parts to improve on their existing engines.
Amazon Buying 100,000 Electric Delivery Vans from Rivian
September 19th, 2019Via: Cnet:
Online retail and technology giant Amazon said at an event today it plans to be completely carbon neutral come 2040, and electric-vehicle startup Rivian will help it get there.
Rivian said Thursday it will design, build and service a new electric van exclusively for Amazon. A representative confirmed with Roadshow this will not be a new vehicle for the public, but a dedicated electric delivery van for the online retailer. It looks like something along the lines of a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, but with the cutesy Honda E face. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company plans to purchase 100,000 of these unnamed Rivian electric vans and the electric-car startup plans for the first to hit the road by 2021.
More: Michigan EV startup Rivian to build electric vans for Amazon
Plan to Kill Off Mosquitoes Backfires Spectacularly, Making the Disease-Carriers Even More Resilient
September 18th, 2019Imagine my shock.
And Now: “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join The Fight To Stop Zika Virus”
Woman Behind Effort to Stop Release of Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Found Dead in Swimming Pool
Via: New York Post:
Life has found a way.
In what sounds like the plot to a Syfy channel original movie, a plan to curb a mosquito population has backfired spectacularly, making the disease-carriers even more resilient to pest-control measures.
The plan involved genetically altering mosquitoes in Brazil so their babies would die instantly, reported Futurism.
However, the company that hatched the plan, British Biotech firm Oxitec Ltd., then released the mutant mosquitoes with the hope that they’d breed with the wild insects and spread the entomological SIDS gene, causing the population to plummet substantially.
This, they pronounced, optimistically, would drastically reduce mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and dengue fever.
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Researchers think that the wild female mosquitoes may have grown wise to the measure and began avoiding the genetically modified males, reported New Atlas.
And if that wasn’t Jurassic Park enough, the wild mosquitoes could have developed a resiliency to the measure, making their population even harder to quash. Now, the region has been left with a huge population of hybrids (combinations of the Brazilian native mosquitoes and the Cuban and Mexican breeds that were genetically altered in the lab) — an outcome that could make the entire population more resistant to the original mosquito control measures.
“The claim was that genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die,” Yale researcher Jeffrey Powell, one of the authors of the study, told New Atlas. “That obviously was not what happened.”
While scientists say that the new hybrids don’t pose an immediate threat, it is unclear if the same will hold true for future generations, according to Powell.
“It is the unanticipated outcome that is concerning,” he said.
More: GM Mosquito Progeny Not Dying in Brazil: Study
An Inside Look at All the Data CBP Collects About Everyone Crossing U.S. Borders
September 18th, 2019Via: Nextgov:
Customs and Border Protection collects a wealth of information through the technologies deployed at the ports of entry, all of which is stored in a master crossing record the agency keeps on every individual who enters the country.
That record contains information gathered at every crossing: the time, date and port of the crossing, the information taken from their travel documents, photos and data collected on their belongings and vehicles, and determinations made by customs officers throughout the process. For non-U.S. citizens, this also means biometric data, such as photos and fingerprints.
That record also includes data culled from a variety of federal databases and sources. But CBP doesn’t automatically share its records with other parts of the government—even other Homeland Security components. However, there are procedures and agreements in place that enable some information sharing, spreading the data beyond just CBP’s control.
Why Is the NY Fed Pumping Billions Into the Money Market?
September 18th, 2019Via: AFP:
For the first time in more than a decade, the US central bank this week stepped into financial markets to keep interest rates on short-term lending from popping above its target range.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank conducted money market interventions on Tuesday and Wednesday and planned another for Thursday morning, as a cash crunch drove up the cost of borrowing for banks that need to replenish the reserves they hold at the central bank.
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Money market rates began to jump on Monday afternoon, hitting as high as 10 percent in some cases, surprising traders.
The reasons behind borrowers’ sudden demand for cash were attributed to a host of technical conditions that converged to drain money out of the system.
There were major cash withdrawals as quarterly corporate taxes came due, at the same time as a surge of US Treasury debt came into the market to finance deficit spending by the federal government.
Last Month, 53 Americans Died in Mass Shootings While 40,000 Died from Obesity
September 18th, 2019Via: The Sun:
IN his fascinating book Unnatural Causes, forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd observes how, over the years, the dead bodies he examines have changed.
One of the most noticeable is the rapid increase in body fat.
He says: “Unless a patient is homeless or has died of cancer or is so old or poor they could not eat, few are the same shape as the dead of the 1980s when I started practising.
“Looking back at forensic photos from that era I am astonished at how thinness was then the norm.”
Fast-forward just three decades and obesity levels are now rising at such a rate that one expert says the “timebomb has exploded” for our health services.
Consequently, the NHS is reportedly bracing itself for soaring levels of cancer, Type 2 diabetes and heart and liver disease.
Kevin Spacey Accuser Dies in Midst of Sexual Assault Lawsuit
September 18th, 2019Via: The Hollywood Reporter:
An anonymous massage therapist who claims to have been sexually assaulted by Kevin Spacey has died, according to a notice filed in court by the actor’s attorneys.
The individual, suing as a “John Doe,” filed claims in September 2018 with the allegation of being forced to grab the actor’s genitals twice during a massage two years earlier at a private residence in Malibu. In May, a federal judge in California allowed the case to move forward despite Spacey’s objection that the plaintiff’s identity was being shielded.
Now, just a month after the parties came to a plan for proceeding in the suit that detailed prospective discovery and envisioned a seven- to 11-day trial, the plaintiff’s attorney has informed Spacey that the client “recently passed.”
No further detail is provided, and a request to the plaintiff’s attorney for more information has not been answered.
Health Fears Prompt Swiss 5G Revolt
September 18th, 2019Via: AFP:
Switzerland was among the first countries to begin deploying 5G, but health fears over radiation from the antennas that carry the next-generation mobile technology have sparked a nationwide revolt.
Demonstrators against the technology are due to fill the streets of Bern later this month, but already a number of cantons have been pressured to put planned constructions of 5G-compatible antennae on ice.
Facebook to Train AI Systems Using Police Video
September 17th, 2019
Via: AP:
Facebook will work with law enforcement organizations to train its artificial intelligence systems to recognize videos of violent events as part of a broader effort to crack down on extremism.
Facebook’s AI systems were unable to detect live-streamed video of a mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The effort will use body-cam footage of firearms training provided by U.S. and U.K. government and law enforcement agencies. The aim is to develop systems that can automatically detect first-person violent events without also flagging similar footage from movies or video games.
