U.S. Preparing Antitrust Probe of Google
May 31st, 2019Via: AFP:
The US Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust investigation of Internet titan Google, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The Journal cited unnamed sources close to the matter as saying the department would look into Google practices related to web search and other businesses.
Justice department officials share antitrust oversight with the Federal Trade Commission, which conducted a wide-ranging investigation of its own into Alphabet-owned Google that ended in 2013 with no action taken.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A new investigation would come as backlash grows against major tech companies that dominate key segments of the online economy.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has argued that big firms such as Facebook, Google and Apple should be broken up through antitrust enforcement.
Alphabet’s profit in the first three months of this year sagged under the weight of a hefty antitrust fine in the European Union.
Julian Assange Shows Psychological Torture Symptoms, Says UN Expert
May 31st, 2019Via: Guardian:
Julian Assange is showing all the symptoms associated with prolonged exposure to psychological torture and should not be extradited to the US, according to a senior UN expert who visited him in prison.
Nils Melzer, UN’s special rapporteur on torture, is expected to make his appeal to the UK government on Friday. It comes after Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, was said by his lawyers to be too ill to appear by video link for the latest court hearing of the case on Thursday.
Trump to Punish Mexico for Illegal Immigration with Tariffs
May 30th, 2019Via: Reuters:
President Donald Trump, incensed by a surge of illegal immigrants across the southern border, vowed on Thursday to impose a tariff on all goods coming from Mexico, starting at 5% and ratcheting higher until the flow of people ceases.
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Higher tariffs will start at 5% on June 10 and increase monthly until reaching 25% on Oct. 1, unless Mexico takes immediate action, he said.
“If the illegal migration crisis is alleviated through effective actions taken by Mexico, to be determined in our sole discretion and judgment, the tariffs will be removed,” Trump said.
Google to Restrict Modern Ad Blocking Chrome Extensions to Enterprise Users
May 29th, 2019Via: 9to5Google:
Back in January, Google announced a proposed change to Chrome’s extensions system, called Manifest V3, that would stop current ad blockers from working efficiently. In a response to the overwhelming negative feedback, Google is standing firm on Chrome’s ad blocking changes, sharing that current ad blocking capabilities will be restricted to enterprise users.
California Assembly OKs Health Care for Immigrants in U.S. Illegally
May 29th, 2019It’s as if California fought a war with some external enemy and lost.
Except, most Californians didn’t notice.
And now…
Via: AP:
The California Assembly voted Tuesday to extend the state’s Medicaid program to eligible adults who are in the country illegally.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to spend about $98 million a year to cover low-income immigrants between the ages of 19 and 25 who are living in the country illegally. The state Senate’s budget proposal would also add coverage for people 65 and older living in the country illegally.
The state Assembly’s bill would cover all immigrants in California living in the country illegally over the age of 19.
Buckle Up: A Crash Trigger Has Hit
May 29th, 2019Via: ZeroHedge:
The bond market is telling us, that the markets… and the economy… are both in very serious trouble.
The difference between the yield on the 3-month Treasury and the 10-year Treasury (called the yield curve) is inverted.
What this means is that yield on the 10-Year Treasury is LOWER than the yield on the 3-month Treasury… this ONLY happens when investors get panicked about the near-term… and flock to long-term Treasuries as a safe haven.
What could happen to trigger such an event?
Well, the last time the yield curve hit these levels at the end of a business cycle was in late 2006… right as the housing market rolled over… and the US began its move into the worst recession in decades.
Indeed, an inverted yield curve is almost always a warning that the economy is moving into a recession.
The stock market is usually quick to follow. The last two times the yield curve inverted like this were March 2000… right when the Tech Bubble burst… and late 2006… right as the housing bubble burst… and about 12 months before the Great Financial Crisis…
China Gears Up to Weaponize Rare Earths in Trade War
May 29th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Beijing is gearing up to use its dominance of rare earths to hit back in its deepening trade war with Washington.
A flurry of Chinese media reports on Wednesday, including an editorial in the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party, raised the prospect of Beijing cutting exports of the commodities that are critical in defense, energy, electronics and automobile sectors. The world’s biggest producer, China supplies about 80% of U.S. imports of rare earths, which are used in a host of applications from smartphones to electric vehicles and wind turbines.
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The U.S. shouldn’t underestimate China’s ability to fight the trade war, the People’s Daily said in an editorial Wednesday that used some historically significant language on the weight of China’s intent.
The newspaper’s commentary included a rare Chinese phrase that means “don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The specific wording was used by the paper in 1962 before China went to war with India, and “those familiar with Chinese diplomatic language know the weight of this phrase,” the Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, said in an article last April. It was also used before conflict broke out between China and Vietnam in 1979.
High Radiation Levels Found in Giant Clams of Marshall Islands Near U.S. Nuclear Dump
May 28th, 2019Via: Los Angeles Times:
Researchers have found high levels of radiation in giant clams near the Central Pacific site where the United States entombed waste from nuclear testing almost four decades ago, raising concerns the contamination is spreading from the dump site’s tainted groundwater into the ocean and the food chain.
The findings from the Marshall Islands suggest that radiation is either leaking from the waste site — which U.S. officials reject — or that authorities did not adequately clean up radiation left behind from past weapons testing, as some in the Marshall Islands claim.
‘American Soil’ Is Increasingly Foreign Owned
May 27th, 2019Via: NPR:
American soil.
Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can’t be be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.
When the stock market tanked during the last recession, foreign investors began buying up big swaths of U.S. farmland. And because there are no federal restrictions on the amount of land that can be foreign-owned, it’s been left up to individual states to decide on any limitations.
It’s likely that even more American land will end up in foreign hands, especially in states with no restrictions on ownership. With the median age of U.S. farmers at 55, many face retirement with no prospect of family members willing to take over. The National Young Farmers Coalition anticipates that two-thirds of the nation’s farmland will change hands in the next few decades.
Astronomers Concerned About Starlink Light Pollution
May 27th, 2019Well, it’s not just me.
Via: Forbes:
SpaceX had kept the logistics of each satellite under wraps prior to the launch, but following the launch it was revealed that each satellite had a relatively large solar panel, perfect for not only gathering but reflecting sunlight back to Earth. This means anyone looking up at the stars, from any location on Earth, would always have the final Starlink constellation in view, for better or worse.
“It turns out that these satellites are easy to see with our own eyes, much brighter than we were expecting,” says astrophysicist Darren Baskill from the University of Sussex in the U.K. “If we can see them with our eyes, that means they are extremely bright for the latest generation of large, sensitive ground-based telescopes.”
Such telescopes include the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), currently under construction and designed to take wide sweeping views of the night sky to study a variety of bodies such as asteroids and comets.
While the true impact of Starlink isn’t known yet, it’s thought the LSST may have to deal with one Starlink satellite every few images, notes astrophysicist Bruce Macintosh from Stanford University in the U.S., resulting in a streak through the image. Such issues are not new to astronomers, but the sheer number of Starlink satellites is cause for concern.
“Part of the knee-jerk reaction across the astronomy community after the launch of the Starlink satellites was purely caused by a lack of information,” says astrophysicist Jessie Christiansen from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the U.S. “A significant amount of the outcry could have been avoided if there had been an impact study done in advance.”
