Ex-CIA Director: U.S. Meddles in Foreign Elections for a ‘Very Good Cause’
February 21st, 2018Via: The Hill:
Following a federal indictment of Russians accused of meddling in the U.S election, a former CIA director on Friday said the U.S. “probably” meddles in other countries’ elections, as well.
The Russian embassy flagged his comments.
When asked whether the U.S. interferes in other countries’ elections, James Woolsey said, “Well, only for a very good cause in the interests of democracy.”
“Oh, probably, but it was for the good of the system in order to avoid communists taking over,” he told Laura Ingraham on her Fox News show on Friday night.
Woolsey served as CIA director under former President Clinton.
The Car of the Future Will Sell Your Data
February 20th, 2018No.
Via: Bloomberg:
Picture this: You’re driving home from work, contemplating what to make for dinner, and as you idle at a red light near your neighborhood pizzeria, an ad offering $5 off a pepperoni pie pops up on your dashboard screen.
Are you annoyed that your car’s trying to sell you something, or pleasantly persuaded? Telenav Inc., a company developing in-car advertising software, is betting you won’t mind much. Car companies—looking to earn some extra money—hope so, too.
South Korean Cryptocurrency Regulator Found Dead at Home
February 20th, 2018Via: Wall Street Journal:
A South Korean official who guided Seoul’s regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrencies was found dead on Sunday, according to a government spokesman.
Jung Ki-joon, 52, was head of economic policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination. He helped coordinate efforts to create new legislation aimed at suppressing cryptocurrency speculation and illicit activity, the spokesman said.
Semiofficial news agency Yonhap reported that Mr. Jung was presumed to have suffered a heart attack and police had opened an investigation into the cause of death. Yonhap also reported that Mr. Jung was found at home. The government spokesman said later that “he died from some unknown cause. He passed away while he was sleeping and [his] heart [had] already stopped beating when he was found dead.”
Mr. Jung’s colleagues said he had been under heavy stress in recent months as South Korea worked to tackle cryptocurrency speculation, Yonhap reported.
Academic Investigating Chinese Influence Peddling in New Zealand Had Break-Ins at Home and Work
February 19th, 2018Via: New Zealand Herald:
A New Zealand academic who made international waves researching China’s international influence campaigns has linked a number of recent break-ins to her work.
University of Canterbury professor Anne-Marie Brady, speaking today from Christchurch to the Australian Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee in Canberra, outlined three recent events which caused her concern.
“I had a break-in in my office last December. I received a warning letter, this week, that I was about to be attacked. And yesterday I had a break-in at my house,” she said.
She said this weeks’ burglary at her Upper Riccarton home was particularly suspicious.
“I had three laptops – including one used for work – stolen. And phones. [Other] valuables weren’t taken. Police are now investigating that.”
Brady also said her employer at Canterbury University had been pressured following earlier work on China’s Antarctic policy and – following a recent visit to China – sources she had talked to were subjected to visits from authorities.
“People I’ve associated with in China, just last year, were questioned by the Chinese Ministry of State Security about their association with me.”
…
Her outspokenness became extremely public after she published in September a “Magic Weapons” paper using New Zealand as a case study in explaining China’s extra-state exertion of influence.
The paper highlighted a river of campaign donations to governing parties, and how a cluster of former senior politicians – including former prime ministers and mayors – and family members of current government ministers had been appointed to boards of state-owned Chinese banks, companies and think tanks.
More: ‘Magic Weapons’: China’s Network of Influence in New Zealand
The Secret on the Ocean Floor
February 19th, 2018Via: BBC:
In the summer of 1974, a large and highly unusual ship set sail from Long Beach in California.
It was heading for the middle of the Pacific where its owners boasted it would herald a revolutionary new industry beneath the waves.
Equipped with a towering rig and the latest in drilling gear, the vessel was designed to reach down through the deep, dark waters to a source of incredible wealth lying on the ocean floor.
It was billed as the boldest step so far in a long-held dream of opening a new frontier in mining, one that would see valuable metals extracted from the rocks of the seabed.
But amid all the excited public relations, there was one small hitch – the whole expedition was a lie.
This was a Cold War deception on a staggering scale, but one which also left a legacy that has profound implications nearly half a century later.
L.A. County’s Homeless Problem Is Worsening Despite Billions from Tax Measures
February 19th, 2018Build the sprawling San Angeles favelas with autonomous construction drones!
No?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Los Angeles County’s homeless population is increasing faster than the supply of new housing, even with the addition of thousands of beds in the last two years and millions of dollars beginning to flow in from two ballot measures targeting the crisis, according to a long-awaited report by the region’s homelessness agency.
The report showed that officials two years ago far underestimated how much new housing would be needed when they asked city and county voters to approve the tax measures.
As a result, a $73-million annual shortfall in funding for the county’s comprehensive homelessness program could more than triple, a Times analysis of the report found.
Providing permanent housing for the county’s chronically homeless population would require more than 20,000 new units, about 5,000 more than projected two years ago, the report said.
San Francisco Streets More Filthy Than Third World Slums
February 19th, 2018Via: NBC:
How dirty is San Francisco? An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous mix of drug needles, garbage, and feces throughout downtown San Francisco. The Investigative Unit surveyed 153 blocks of the city – the more than 20-mile stretch includes popular tourist spots like Union Square and major hotel chains. The area – bordered by Van Ness Avenue, Market Street, Post Street and Grant Avenue – is also home to City Hall, schools, playgrounds, and a police station.
…
“If you do get stuck with these disposed needles you can get HIV, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis B, and a variety of other viral diseases,” said Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at University of California, Berkeley. He warned that once fecal matter dries, it can become airborne, releasing potentially dangerous viruses, such as the rotavirus. “If you happen to inhale that, it can also go into your intestine,” he said. The results can prove fatal, especially in children.
Riley has researched conditions across the poorest slums of the world. His book titled, “Slum Health,” examines health problems that are created by extreme poverty.
Based on the findings of the Investigative Unit survey, Riley believes parts of the city may be even dirtier than slums in some developing countries.
“The contamination is … much greater than communities in Brazil or Kenya or India,” he said. He notes that in those countries, slum dwellings are often long-term homes for families and so there is an attempt to make the surroundings more livable. Homeless communities in San Francisco, however, are often kicked out from one part of town and forced to relocate to another. The result is extreme contamination, according to Riley.
Oregon UFO Incident
February 17th, 2018Via: The War Zone:
Last November, The War Zone posted an exclusive story detailing a bizarre incident involving an unidentified aircraft that transited the skies of the Pacific Northwest in the early evening of October 25th, 2017. What started as a radar target moving at very high speed over Northern California turned into a series of eyewitness accounts made by nearby airline pilots traveling northward over Oregon. Even F-15 fighters were launched to intercept the mysterious intruder that quickly became invisible to radar.
Now, through the Freedom of Information Act, we present what could be one of the most insightful instances of official documentation surrounding such an encounter that had already been confirmed to have occurred by both the FAA and the USAF. These materials include fascinating audio recordings of radio transmissions and phone calls made as the incident was unfolding, as well as pilot interviews, and conversations between FAA officials made in the aftermath of the highly peculiar incident.
Brazil Military Takes Control of Rio de Janeiro’s Security
February 16th, 2018Via: Bloomberg:
Brazil’s military will take control of public security in the state of Rio de Janeiro as a wave of violence rattles the population and dominates media coverage ahead of this year’s presidential election.
President Michel Temer will issue a decree on Friday putting the military in charge of Rio’s security forces, his press office said in an e-mailed statement. An army general would be in charge even of the state’s civilian police, according to two sources with direct knowledge fo the order. The intervention, which requires congressional approval, will last until the end of the year, said the people who requested not to be named because the decree isn’t public yet. Temer will address the situation in a nationally-televised speech Friday night.
The move, the first of its kind since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985, is a response to growing demands ahead of the October general elections for a crack down on crime and violence. It may also provide an excuse not to vote an unpopular pension bill, because by law changes to the Constitution can’t be made while a military intervention is in effect.
Florida High School Shooting
February 15th, 2018Update: On the Day of the Shooting, Teachers Were Told There Would Soon Be a “Code Red” or “Lockdown” Drill
Via: Miami Herald:
When the fire alarm rang near the end of the school day on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, teacher Ernest Rospierski assumed it was a “code red” drill.
Earlier that day at a staff meeting, teachers had been told there would soon be a “code red” or “lockdown” drill — in which teachers and students practice their response to an immediate threat — but they hadn’t been told the date.
Rospierski was sitting at his desk around 2:25 p.m. when the fire alarm rang. His students filed out of their third-floor classroom and made their way toward the stairs. Then Rospierski heard the sound of gunfire.
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Update: The FBI Was Warned About A School Shooting Threat From A YouTube User Named Nikolas Cruz In September
Via: BuzzFeed:
Last fall, a Mississippi bail bondsman and frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz.
The YouTuber, 36-year-old Ben Bennight, alerted the FBI, emailing a screenshot of the comment to the bureau’s tips account. He also flagged the comment to YouTube, which removed it from the video.
Agents with the bureau’s Mississippi field office got back to him “immediately,” Bennight said, and conducted an in-person interview the following day, on Sept. 25.
“They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person,” Bennight told BuzzFeed News. “I didn’t. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them.”
FBI agents contacted Bennight again Wednesday, after a 19-year-old named Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, killing at least 17 people.
…
Though his name matches the YouTube user flagged in September, FBI officials would not say whether they have confirmed that the account belonged to Cruz.
But around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday — about 30 minutes after Cruz was taken into custody by police in Broward County — Special Agent Ryan Furr with the FBI’s Miami field office called Bennight and left him a voicemail.
“I think we spoke with you in the past about a complaint that you made about someone making a comment on your YouTube channel,” the agent said in the message, which Bennight provided to BuzzFeed News. “I just wanted to follow up with you on that and ask you a question with something that’s come up, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a ring.”
A few hours later, Bennight said, FBI agents in Mississippi visited him again in person, pressing for more information about the YouTube user Nikolas Cruz.
“They asked me if I knew who he was. I didn’t. I don’t,” Bennight said. “Then they left.”
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Via: Daily Mail:
Valentine’s day shooter Nikolas Cruz was expelled last year for ‘fighting over his ex-girlfriend’ and made shocking Instagram posts detailing a twisted obsession for guns, violence and hurting animals, it has emerged.
Nikolas Cruz shot 17 people dead and injured 50 more when he went on the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday armed with an AR-15 assault rifle he was able to buy legally.
Former classmates of the 19-year-old, said they had feared he was capable of a school shooting as they revealed he was ‘crazy about guns’. One student said Cruz was expelled after a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. The gunman had also been abusive to his girlfriend, the student said.
