Fox News

A Texas police officer who vanished from his home last week was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

Baytown police officer John Stewart Beasley, 46, was found dead Tuesday in a field three miles from his Cove residence, Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said.

Beasley, a 23-year veteran of the police force, was reported missing Thursday and last seen walking away from his home. It’s believed Beasley died the same day he was reported missing.   Continue reading “Missing Texas police officer found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials say”

Bloomberg

Some of the world’s largest companies have benefited from a little-known law that lets the Defense Department override decisions barring contractors accused or convicted of bribery, fraud, theft, and other crimes from doing business with the government.

International Business Machines Corp., Boeing Co., BP Plc, and several other contractors have received special dispensation to fulfill multimillion-dollar government contracts through “compelling reason determinations.” That process allows the Defense Department in rare cases to determine that the need to fulfill certain contracts justifies doing business with companies that have been suspended from government work.   Continue reading “Millions Flow to Pentagon’s Banned Contractors Via a Back Door”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

One day after what appeared to be a coordinated attack by media giants Facebook, Apple, Spotify and Google on Alex Jones, whose various social media accounts were banned or suspended in a matter of hours, the crackdown against alternative media figures continued as several Libertarian figures, including the Ron Paul Institute director, found their Twitter accounts suspended.    Continue reading “The Crackdown Continues: Twitter Suspends Libertarian Accounts, Including Ron Paul Institute Director”

ABC 6

GERMANTOWN (WPVI) — A Philadelphia police officer was shot in the face while serving a warrant in the Germantown section of the city on Monday morning.

The officer is identified as 49-year-old Jason Potts, a 20 year veteran of the force and a member of the SWAT team. He is married with three children.   Continue reading “Philadelphia police officer shot in the face while serving warrant in Germantown”

Fox News

A federal judge on Friday ordered a total restart of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in a hit to the Trump administration.

The administration last year announced its plan to phase out the program, which provides a level of amnesty to certain illegal immigrants, many of whom came to the U.S. as children.   Continue reading “DACA program should be fully restarted, federal judge rules”

Business Insider

A curious and credible Tweet from the Director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen, on August 1, 2018 at 5:14 PM Washington D.C. time claimed that a, “Meteor explodes with 2.1 kilotons force 43 km above missile early warning radar at Thule Air Base.”

The Tweet apparently originated from Twitter user “Rocket Ron”, a “Space Explorer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory”. The original Tweet read, “A fireball was detected over Greenland on July 25, 2018 by US Government sensors at an altitude of 43.3 km. The energy from the explosion is estimated to be 2.1 kilotons.” Rocket Ron’s Tweet hit in the afternoon on Jul. 31. Continue reading “Mystery meteor reportedly makes 2.1 kiloton explosion above US military base — and the Air Force said nothing”

Fox News

Amazon took down the website of a gun rights coalition Wednesday after they posted the blueprints for 3D-printed weapons online.

CodeisFreeSpeech.com was removed by Amazon Web Services after receiving a notice on the downloadable plans for “The Liberator” 3D-printed handgun, according to the New York Daily News.   Continue reading “Amazon removes gun activists’ website after 3D-printed weapons blueprints were posted”

Forbes

In a landmark decision, a federal court ruled that the Albuquerque’s civil forfeiture program “violates procedural due process” because it forced hundreds of property owners to prove their own innocence. With his ruling spanning over 100 pages, Judge James Browning also found that the city’s “forfeiture officials have an unconstitutional institutional incentive to prosecute forfeiture cases,” since the program has “de facto power over its spending…the more revenue it raises, the more revenue it can spend.”

Thanks to this incentive to police for profit, the city’s forfeiture program “generated $11.8 million in revenue ‘in the form of forfeitures, settlements and fees,” between fiscal 2009 and 2016. The program was so lucrative, revenues actually exceeded expenses for four of those years.   Continue reading “Judge Rules Albuquerque Civil Forfeiture Law Unconstitutional, Upholds Innocent Until Proven Guilty”

Yahoo News

Doctors have been forced to amputate a man’s legs and parts of his hands after he suffered sepsis believed to be caused by being licked by a dog.

Greg Manteufel, 48, was exhibiting flu-like symptoms and becoming delirious when bruises began appearing across his face and body. His wife, Dawn Manteufel, watched the bruises grow as she rushed him to the hospital, later telling local news outlet WITI it “looked like somebody beat him up with a baseball bat.”   Continue reading “Man has limbs amputated after being licked by a dog”

Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday blocked the imminent release of blueprints for 3-D printed guns, hours before they were set to hit the internet, after several states sued to halt publication of designs to make weapons that security screening may not detect.

U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in Seattle, Washington, said the blueprints’ publication could cause irreparable harm to U.S. citizens. The decision blocked a settlement President Donald Trump’s administration had reached with the Texas-based company, which planned to put files online on Wednesday.   Continue reading “U.S. judge halts release of blueprints for 3-D printed guns”

Yahoo News

Concerned about the potential for readily available downloadable instructions to make 3D-printed guns, a group of state attorneys general has filed suit to block a Trump administration settlement with an organization Defense Distributed, a Texas non-profit. Until June 29, the federal government had maintained that the printer files and tutorials violated firearms export laws.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson leads a group of eight states and Washington, D.C., in suing the Trump administation in case filed in federal court in Seattle. Ferguson alleges that the feds violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Tenth Amendment. Besides Washington, attorney generals in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania have joined in.   Continue reading “States Sue to Block Downloads of 3D-Printed Gun Instructions”

Fox News

Hundreds of gun owners in Florida have been ordered to give up their guns under a new law that took effect after the deadly Parkland shooting in February, according to a report published Monday.

The Risk Protection Order, signed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott just three weeks after a gunman killed 17 people at Stoneman Douglas, aims to temporarily remove weapons from gun owners who have been deemed by a judge to possibly be a threat to themselves or others.   Continue reading “More than 450 people in Florida ordered to give up guns under new law, report says”

CBS 13

REDDING, Calif. (AP) — An explosive wildfire tore through two small Northern California communities Thursday before reaching the city of Redding, killing a bulldozer operator on the fire lines, burning three firefighters, destroying dozens of homes and forcing thousands of terrified residents to flee.

Flames swept through the communities of Shasta and Keswick before jumping the Sacramento River and reaching Redding, a city of about 92,000 people and the largest in the region.   Continue reading “Wildfire Jumps Sacramento River, Burning Homes, People in Redding”

The Oregonian

The case against indicted FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita rests on officer accountability, a federal prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

Astarita stands accused of falsely denying that he fired two shots at the truck of  Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, the spokesman for the 2016 armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon.   Continue reading “Prosecutor says case against indicted FBI agent is all about ‘integrity’”

Yahoo News

BOSTON (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Wednesday weighed whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to carry guns in public for self-defense in a lawsuit challenging the firearm licensing policies of two Massachusetts municipalities including Boston.

The arguments before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston marked the latest instance in which a federal appeals court has weighed the extent the Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms outside of a person’s home.   Continue reading “U.S. court weighs challenge to Boston gun restrictions”

Yahoo News

A Trader Joe’s employee killed during a crime-spree in Los Angeles last weekend was struck by a police bullet — not the suspect’s bullet — Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said at a news conference Tuesday.

Moore said the officers are “devastated” that Trader Joe’s employee Melyda Corado, 27, died from their efforts to stop the gunman.   Continue reading “Slain Trader Joe’s employee was hit by police bullet during suspect’s crime-spree: ‘I am truly sorry,’ says police chief”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

Israel has shot down a Syrian fighter jet that penetrated Israeli airspace on Tuesday, the Israeli army said.  According to the IDF spokesperson, the Russian-made Sukhoi was under surveillance when it entered some two kilometers into Israeli airspace and was shot down by two Patriot missiles.  Continue reading “Israel Shoots Down Syrian Fighter Jet”

The Hill

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Monday that he pardoned seven people under threat of deportation to protect his state’s immigrant communities as President Trump continues to “ramp up deportation of New Yorkers to advance his political agenda of hate and division.”

“At a time when President Trump and the Federal government are waging a war on our immigrant communities, New York stands firm in our belief that our diversity is our greatest strength,” Cuomo said in a statement obtained by ABC News.  Continue reading “Cuomo pardons seven people under threat of deportation”

WFLA

CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) – An argument about a handicapped parking space led to a deadly shooting outside a Clearwater convenience store Thursday that was witnessed by the deceased man’s 5-year-old son.

No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting. Detectives are investigating to determine if the case meets the criteria of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.   Continue reading “Stand Your Ground? Handicapped parking feud leads to deadly Clearwater shooting”

Fox News

WATFORD CITY, N.D. –  A newborn baby was killed and more than two dozen people were injured when a tornado whipped through a North Dakota oil patch city overnight, overturning recreational vehicles and demolishing more than 100 structures, officials said Tuesday.

The storm moved through Watford City, in the northwestern part of the state, shortly after midnight, hitting an RV park the hardest, according to sheriff’s officials. About 20 of the reported 28 injured were staying at the Prairie View RV Park where high winds overturned some campers and damaged mobile homes.   Continue reading “Baby killed, dozens hurt when tornado hits North Dakota city”