Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cemented a $10 billion deal for a refining and petrochemical complex in China on Friday, meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping who urged joint efforts to counter extremism and terror.

The Saudi delegation, including top executives from state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, arrived on Thursday on an Asia tour that has already seen the kingdom pledge investment of $20 billion in Pakistan and seek to make additional investments in India’s refining industry.   Continue reading “Saudi Arabia strikes $10 billion China deal, talks de-radicalisation with Xi”

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

Law enforcement agencies love their automatic license plate readers. ALPRs do what cops physically can’t: scan millions of plates a year and run them against a number of shared databases. The systems are black boxes. The public is often given little information about how many plate images databases store or for how long. Law enforcement agencies rarely audit the data, providing zero insight on the number of false positives ALPRs return. Non-hit photos are sometimes held indefinitely, creating databases of people’s movements.   Continue reading “Deputies Sued After False ALPR Hit Leads To Guns-Out Traffic Stop Of California Privacy Activist”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

Turkey is now venting its wrath as its F-35 standoff with Washington is thrust to the next level, and after Friday President Trump signed a spending bill that blocks further F-35 transfers until November 1st of 2019, which gives the White House a window of time to evaluate if Ankara will indeed move forward with transfer of Russia’s S-400 air defense system to Turkey. Amidst the Pastor Andrew Brunson detention affair which drew widespread media attention last summer Congressional leaders demanded that the over 100 Lockheed Martin-made F-35 stealth jets purchased by Turkey be blocked from delivery. Following Brunson’s release, the bigger security issue became Turkey’s seeking the S-400.    Continue reading “Turkey To Receive Russian S-400 Delivery in July, Rejects US Patriot Systems Offer”

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will leave “a small peacekeeping group” of 200 American troops in Syria for a period of time after a U.S. pullout, the White House said on Thursday, as President Donald Trump pulled back from a complete withdrawal.

Trump in December ordered a withdrawal of the 2,000 American troops in Syria on the defeat of the last remnants of the Islamic State militants there.   Continue reading “U.S. to leave 200 American peacekeepers in Syria after pullout”

FEE – by Jon Miltimore

Via the Detroit Free Press:

Police and prosecutors would be prohibited from seizing cash and property from people accused of a crime until they are convicted on the charges under a bill passed in the state Senate on Wednesday. Continue reading “Michigan Seeks to Ban Police from Seizing Property from People Who Have Not Been Convicted of Crimes”

Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins

Body cam footage released February 20, 2019, shows a suspect shoot at a Napa County Sheriff’s deputy only to be killed as a result.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the shooting occurred on February 17, 2019, as Napa County Sheriff’s deputy Riley Jarecki checked on a parked car. Forty-three-year-old Javier Hernandez Morales was sitting in the driver’s seat when Jarecki approached and asked if she could check the vehicle.   Continue reading “Suspect Shoots at Deputy from Point-Blank Range, Gets Killed”

RT

The Earth’s atmosphere is much bigger than previously thought, extending far beyond the Moon, a team of scientists have revealed. The amazing discovery was made thanks to data that has been sitting unexamined for over 20 years.

We now know that the atmosphere surrounding our planet stretches 630,000km (391,464 miles) away and is 50 times the diameter of Earth, thanks to the discovery and analysis of decades-old data by scientists at Russia’s Space Research Institute.   Continue reading “Staggering discovery reveals moon lies INSIDE Earth’s atmosphere”

Oregon Live – by Douglas Perry

Children are our future — and a group of Oregon lawmakers wants the future to be now.

They’re pushing a bill that would amend Oregon’s constitution to lower the voting age in the state from 18 to 16. They hope to put it before voters in 2020.   Continue reading “Oregon lawmakers seek to lower voting age in state to 16, so teens can ‘protect their future’”

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

The ugly Houston PD drug raid that resulted in four injured officers and two dead “suspects” just keeps getting uglier.

Officers swore a confidential informant purchased heroin from 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle in the house he shared with his wife of 21 years, Rhogena Nicholas. They swore the CI told them the house was filled with heroin packaged for purchase.   Continue reading “Fatal Houston PD Drug Raid Apparently Predicated On Drugs A Cop Had Stashed In His Car”

Breitbart – by Sean Moran

Former first lady and former Vice President Joe Biden tied for the Democrats’ favorite 2020 presidential candidate in a poll released on Tuesday.

Twenty-five percent of Democrat voters said that they would either back Obama or Biden for the Democrat nomination, even though neither Democrat has declared their candidacy for president in 2020, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Tuesday.   Continue reading “Poll: Michelle Obama, Joe Biden Top Contenders for 2020 Democrat Nomination”

Courthouse News – by Colleen Long

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced new rules Friday to scrutinize petitions to bring in underage spouses to the U.S., after data showed thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides had been approved.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it was updating guidance to adjudicators that stresses marriages involving minors warrant special attention. They must ensure the marriage was lawful where it was celebrated, and is legal in the state where they will live, and that it is bona fide and the minor consented freely to it.   Continue reading “ICE Issues New Guidance on Petitions for Child Brides”

Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist

Houston, TX — It has been three weeks since the Houston police department fabricated information which led to a no-knock raid on an innocent couple’s home. The botched raid left and innocent husband, an innocent wife, and their dog—all murdered—as well as four cops shot. Now, in a move TFTP has never seen, the Houston police department is claiming they are taking steps to prevent future scenarios like this from happening—by ceasing the use of no-knock raids.   Continue reading “After Innocent Couple Murdered Over Cop’s Lies, Houston Police Vow No More No-Knock Raids”

RT

A school running a community arts center in Ohio was forced to stop advertising a party game where kids are instructed to ‘eliminate’ the president with toy guns, after it sparked national outrage.

The game entitled ‘President’ had been advertised as a part of Nerf gun-themed party organized by the Olmsted Performing Arts community center in Berea, a suburb of Cleveland.   Continue reading “‘Shoot the president’: School cancels assassination party game for kids after public outcry”

CBS News

Texas Rep. Will Hurd, the sole Republican representing a congressional district along the southern border, said more than 1,000 farmers in his state are at risk of having their land seized by the federal government to facilitate the construction of President Trump’s long-promised wall.

“In the great state of Texas, we care about a little thing called private property, and there’s going to be over 1,000 ranchers and farmers potentially impacted if the government comes in and takes their land,” Hurd said on “Face the Nation” Sunday.   Continue reading “Hurd says 1,000 Texas farmers could have land seized to build Trump’s border wall”

Activist Post – by BN Frank

I’m not saying that the well-funded publicly promoted and celebrated American Eugenics Movement wasn’t covered in my high school American History class.  But I feel like I’d remember learning about it.  I still shudder when I think of about the book, The Scarlet Letter.  It was only the last few years that remember seeing news coverage about states that once had laws allowing forced sterilizations.  These were apparently part of the American Eugenics movement.  Some people who were forcibly sterilized during that time period are being financially compensated.   Continue reading “PBS Documentary on How “The Eugenics Crusade” Started in the U.S. – Not Nazi Germany”

RT

Tel Aviv has decided to deduct some $138 million from the amount of taxes it collected on behalf of Palestine. It comes in retaliation to stipends the Palestinian Authority pays to families jailed over violent anti-Israeli crimes.

The move was announced by the Security Cabinet of Israel on Sunday, as it decided to put into effect a law, passed by the country’s parliament last July.   Continue reading “Israel to withhold $138mn from Palestinian taxes it collects, citing support of prisoners”

Jon Rappoport

Television viewers are inundated with drug ads from Big Pharma. It’s a flood.

Have you ever heard of these drugs? Otezla, Xeljanz, Namzaric, Keytruda, Breo, Cosentyz? Not likely. If you have, do you know what conditions they treat? Highly unlikely. But there they are, splashed in commercials.   Continue reading “The deeper reason for drug ads on television”

Houston Chronicle

Even before the deadly drug raid that left two civilians dead, Houston Police Officer Gerald Goines had a troubling history of allegations against him.

The undercover case agent in the Jan. 28 Pecan Park raid had been involved in multiple shootings, racked up a smattering of written reprimands, faced several lawsuits and is currently accused of fabricating a drug deal then lying about it in court to win a conviction against a man who has long maintained he’s innocent, according to a Houston Chronicle review of internal police records and court documents.   Continue reading “Houston police officer in drug raid had previous allegations against him”