Year: 2014

ABC News – by Jim Salter

School officials concerned about students being waylaid by protests are asking the St. Louis County prosecutor to wait until classes are not in session to announce whether a white police officer will face charges for the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old.

A grand jury is expected to decide by mid-November whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown. The shooting led to weeks of sometimes violent protests in and around the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson and spurred a national conversation about race and policing. Law enforcement officials are already bracing for potential fallout from the decision.   Continue reading “Schools Fret Over Ferguson Grand Jury Announcement”

The Daily Beast – by Creede Newton

Were Israeli soldiers so haunted by what they saw and did in the last Gaza war that they took their own lives? What role did their zealous commander play?

HAIFA, Israel—More than two months after the end of Israel’s latest offensive in Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, its consequences are still being felt in Israeli society. While the Palestinian territory where the war was waged lies in ruins, for some of the Israelis who fought there the devastation that lingers is in the mind.   Continue reading “The Ghosts of Gaza: Israel’s Soldier Suicides”

The Organic Prepper

Tis the season for the flu shot propaganda machine to rev into high gear, as Big Pharma, the CDC, and the mainstream media urge people to roll up their sleeves and have toxins like mercury and formaldehyde injected into them, all in the name of “staying healthy this winter.”

There’s a much easier way to stay healthy that also involves toxins – the ones in our food supply. Only I recommend avoiding them instead of injecting them directly into your body.   Continue reading “Boosting Your Immune System: What NOT to Eat”

The Nation – by Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen F. Cohen

On October 6, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel and contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen (professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton) sat down in Moscow for a wide-ranging discussion with Edward Snowden. Throughout their nearly four-hour conversation, which lasted considerably longer than planned (see below for audio excerpts), the youthful-appearing Snowden was affable, forthcoming, thoughtful and occasionally humorous. Among other issues, he discussed the price he has paid for speaking truth to power, his definition of patriotism and accountability, and his frustration with America’s media and political system. The interview has been edited and abridged for publication, compressing lengthy conversations about technological issues that Snowden has discussed elsewhere.   Continue reading “Edward Snowden: A ‘Nation’ Interview”

ABC News

The Swiss agency that regulates new drugs said Tuesday it has approved an application for a clinical trial with an experimental Ebola vaccine at the Lausanne University Hospital.

Swissmedic said the trial will be conducted among 120 volunteer participants with support from the U.N. World Health Organization. The experimental vaccine is to be initially administered on healthy volunteers who will be sent as medical staff to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.   Continue reading “Swiss Agency Approves Trial for Ebola Vaccine”

WRAL 5

NASHVILLE, N.C. — A shooting occurred Tuesday morning outside the Nash County Courthouse in Nashville, Sheriff Dick Jenkins said.

Two men were shot and suffered what Jenkins described as non-life-threatening wounds.

Authorities are still looking for two gunmen and a white car, the sheriff said.   Continue reading “Manhunt on for gunmen after two shot outside Nash courthouse”

I remember it as if happened yesterday, but the documentation eludes my internet searches, so the time of the occurrence is going to require some guesswork.

I think it was about a year ago, maybe two, when in the span of one month, more than a hundred police chiefs and captains from all across the country suddenly resigned their positions.

Several journalists noted the anomaly, so there are news articles about this somewhere out there (or were), but none of these journalists gave any reason for what seemed to me like an obvious refusal to abide by new policies.           Continue reading “COPS”

RT

The Internal Revenue Service has been seizing bank accounts belonging to small businesses and individuals who regularly made deposits of less than $10,000, but broke no laws. And the government is refusing to return all the money taken.

The practice ‒ called civil asset forfeiture ‒ allows IRS agents to seize property they suspect of being tied to a crime, even if no charges are filed, and their agency is allowed to keep a share of whatever is forfeited, the New York Times reported. It’s designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking cash deposits under $10,000, which is the threshold for when banks are federally required to report activity to the IRS under the Bank Secrecy Act.   Continue reading “IRS seizes hundreds of perfectly legal bank accounts, refuses to give money back”

RT

Australia is the first country to temporarily close its borders to people traveling from West African states battling against the Ebola epidemic. The move comes despite the fact the Ebola-free country has not sent aid workers to any afflicted regions.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told parliament on Monday, Australia has issued a blanket visa ban for those traveling from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“This means we are not processing any applications from these affected countries,” Morrison said.   Continue reading “Australia slammed for closing borders to Ebola-struck W. African states”

Mail.com

HAHNVILLE, La. (AP) — Off a narrow gravel road running between a handful of mostly abandoned lots near a Mississippi River levee, down past sprawling oak trees and thick weeds, a lectern framed by banana trees has been set up in front of three short rows of folding chairs.

This is about as far from Washington, D.C., as a politician can get, but Edwin Edwards is happy to speak here, standing patiently in the damp, sub-tropical heat in the town of Hahnville for even a few potential voters to show up.   Continue reading “Ex-gov, ex-con Edwin Edwards on the stump again”

Mail.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man accused of killing two sheriff’s deputies and wounding two other people in a bloody chase through Northern California was arrested nearly a decade ago in Utah, but authorities didn’t connect him with his criminal past or previous deportations.

The man known as Marcelo Marquez and his wife were scheduled to make their first court appearances on Tuesday in a Sacramento County courtroom. Prosecutors in that county and neighboring Placer County were trying to sort out what charges to file after Friday’s rampage and said they would announce the counts.   Continue reading “Suspect in deputy deaths arrested in Utah in 2003”

Mail.com

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The first body found in three months was being recovered Tuesday from the sunken South Korean ferry, increasing the official death toll to 295, officials said.

The government task force said in a statement the body was found around a women’s toilet in the ship. The badly decayed body was being pulled up to the surface and DNA tests were planned to identify the victim, according to task force officials.   Continue reading “Victim’s body found from sunken South Korean ferry”

Mail.com

ATLANTA (AP) — A Dallas nurse who flew from Texas to Ohio and back before being diagnosed with Ebola will be released from an Atlanta hospital Tuesday after tests showed she’s virus-free, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Amber Vinson, 29, would be leaving Emory University Hospital after attending a 1 p.m. news conference where she would make a statement, Emory spokeswoman Holly Korschun told The Associated Press. Vinson worked as a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died of Ebola at the hospital on Oct. 8.   Continue reading “Nurse who had Ebola will be released from hospital”

David Swanson

The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them.

A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard’s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). “Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round,” said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.   Continue reading “U.S. Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East”

Mirror – by Alex Wellman

A flock of sheep were left feeling a little woolly-headed after getting high feasting on the wrong sort of grass.

The animals began stumbling around after eating through thousands of pounds of cannabis dumped in their field.

Police revealed that seven bags of the intoxicating plant, worth around £4,000, were eaten by the sheep who had tucked into their illegal meal completely unaware.   Continue reading “Cannabis-munching sheep left high as a kite after eating through £4,000 worth of drugs”

The New American – by Bob Adelmann

PEN America is using the alleged use of excessive force by the police in restraining crowds and journalists trying to cover the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, last August to call for federal guidelines to be applied to every local police force in the country.

The group — part of the PEN American Center, whose motto is “Protecting Free Expression” — published its summary of 52 instances of Ferguson police allegedly overreacting to real and perceived threats to public safety in the aftermath of the shooting of Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Calling them “alleged” violations, PEN America said on Monday that they “contravene a right that is protected under the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.”   Continue reading “Calls for National Police Guidelines After Ferguson”

The New American – by Dave Bohon

A longtime North Carolina judge has resigned his position rather than be forced to perform same-sex marriages against his Christian convictions. Swain County Magistrate Judge Gilbert Breedlove, in office since 1990, resigned October 20, citing the October federal court ruling that struck down North Carolina’s voter-passed constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

“It was my only option,” the 57-year-old Breedlove told the Asheville, N.C., Citizen-Times newspaper. “We were directed we had to perform the marriages, and that was just something I couldn’t do because of my religious beliefs.”   Continue reading “N.C. Judge Resigns Rather Than Perform Same-sex “Marriages””

Bloomberg – by Mario Parker

Coal exports from the U.S. West Coast rose to the highest in more than a decade amid demand from Mexico and Asia, providing a market for the power-plant fuel amid lower domestic consumption.

Shipments from the western U.S. are up 35 percent to about 5 million tons through the first six months of this year, led by an almost six-fold jump in cargoes leaving San Francisco, according to the Energy Information Administration. That comes even as nationwide exports have fallen 15 percent.   Continue reading “U.S. West Coast Coal Exports Rise as Mexico to China Buy”