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.
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“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.
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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.
NSA Shooting: 3 in Custody, Officer Injured After SUV Stopped at Fort Meade Security Gate
February 14th, 2018Via: Baltimore Sun:
FBI officials said they are continuing to investigate an incident at Fort Meade early Wednesday that left three people injured when the driver of an SUV attempted to make an unauthorized entry into the National Security Agency’s compound.
Dave Fitz, a spokesman at the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said late Wednesday investigators are looking into the possibility that the driver made a wrong turn at the complex, but said it is not the only theory officials are examining.
Those injured included an NSA police officer, a civilian onlooker and the driver of the black SUV, said Gordon B. Johnson, special agent in charge for the FBI’s Baltimore office. He said the SUV had a total of three occupants.
At a news briefing at Fort Meade, Johnson described the encounter as “an isolated incident.”
“I cannot emphasize enough that we believe there is no indication that this has a nexus to terrorism,” Johnson said.
The FBI took the lead in the investigation, and at the news conference Johnson said only limited information was available to be shared.
Whistleblower: VIX Being Rigged
February 13th, 2018Via: MarketWatch:
One of the most popular measures of volatility is being manipulated, charges one individual who submitted a letter anonymously to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The letter makes the claim to regulators that fake quotes for the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.26% are skewing levels of the Cboe Volatility Index VIX, -2.50% which reflects bearish and bullish options bets 30-days in the future on the S&P 500 to gauge implied stock-market volatility (see excerpt from the letter below).
The flaw allows trading firms with sophisticated algorithms to move the VIX up or down by simply posting quotes on S&P options and without needing to physically engage in any trading or deploying any capital. This market manipulation has led to multiple billions in profits effectively taken away from institutional and retail investors and cashed in by unethical electronic option market makers.
The whistleblower’s claims are consistent with those documented by John Griffin, professor of finance at the University of Texas and Ph.D. candidate Amin Shams in May 2017 in research that says the cost of manipulating less-liquid SPX options would be more than paid for by a successful bet on the direction of the VIX. The paper is consistent with the whistleblower’s conclusion—that manipulators are moving prices of the SPX options by spoofing at settlement—entering quotes for trades that are never executed—to “paint the tape” and, therefore, influence the value of expiring VIX derivatives.
Related: The Economist: It Appears Market Conspiracy Theorists Were Right
Total U.S. Household Debt Soars to Record Above $13 Trillion
February 13th, 2018Via: CNBC:
The American consumer is loading up on debt.
Total household debt rose by $193 billion to an all-time high of $13.15 trillion at year-end 2017 from the previous quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data report released Tuesday.
Israeli Police Recommend Bribery Charges Against Netanyahu
February 13th, 2018Wake me up when this monster is prosecuted for war crimes.
Via: Reuters:
Israeli police on Tuesday recommended indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery, opening the way for what could be the biggest challenge yet to the right-wing leader’s political survival.
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In a detailed statement, police named Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer and Israeli citizen, and Australian businessman James Packer, saying that for nearly a decade, from 2007 to 2016, they gave gifts that included champagne, cigars and jewelry to Netanyahu and his family.
In all, the merchandise was worth more than one million shekels ($280,000), the statement said. Any legal proceedings would likely focus on whether political favors were sought or granted.
Netanyahu’s lawyers said the presents were simply tokens of friendship.
Hey Buddy, Can You Give Me a Hand?
February 12th, 2018Via: Boston Dynamics:
German Court Rules Facebook Use of Personal Data Illegal
February 12th, 2018Via: Reuters:
A German consumer rights group said on Monday that a court had found Facebook’s use of personal data to be illegal because the U.S. social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users.
The verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as Big Tech faces increasing scrutiny in Germany over its handling of sensitive personal data that enables it to micro-target online advertising.
