From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
Pax Britannica lasted 116 years from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the default on gold payment by the Bank of England on September 21, 1931.
Pax America did not officially begin until the conclusion of the Bretton Woods Conference had created the IMF and made the US Federal Reserve Note the world’s reserve currency. Continue reading “From Pax Britannica To Pax America To The Petrodollar To Helter Skelter.”
More than 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s water is undrinkable. The rest is quickly running out. A combination of factors is rapidly depriving the population of this most basic of needs. RT investigated day-to-day life under these conditions.
Just one fresh water source exists today, according to the locals – a coastal aquifer beneath the ground that is shared with Israel and Egypt. But Gaza is situated downstream from Israel, and Palestinians accuse the Jewish state of using the situation to its advantage, employing water deprivation as a tactic against the civilian population. Continue reading “Gaza water shortage catastrophic: ‘We can’t drink, cook or wash with it’”
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A man reportedly identified as an aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was shot in the head and critically injured after gunfire erupted in the pre-dawn hours on Monday before the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn, police said.
The 43-year-old man was the “unintended target” of the shooting, which took place at 3:41 a.m. at 1680 Bedford Avenue, said a spokeswoman for the New York Police Department. Continue reading “Man shot in head before Brooklyn parade is reportedly Gov. Cuomo aide”
New York Times, August 25, 1994
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24— The Atomic Energy Commission staged a nuclear rocket accident in the Nevada desert in 1965 that sent a radioactive cloud more than 200 miles to Los Angeles, documents released today showed.
The newly released documents also showed that in 1960, military planes were sent through radioactive rocket exhaust, and radiation doses to flight crews were measured. Continue reading “U.S. Nuclear Accident in 1965 Was Staged, Documents Show”
A massive fireball, believed to be a meteorite, has fallen on Thailand. Awestruck commuters witnessed the spectacle, describing a green and orange glow, as it took a nosedive toward Earth.
The event took place during the morning rush hour at about 8:45am local time in Bangkok, although the meteor did not make an audible sound as it struck the ground. Continue reading “Thai meteorite: Huge fireball lights up sky over Bangkok”
As staged multi-agency drills go, they don’t come much bigger than this one.
This afternoon a mass manhunt was underway by law enforcement in Fox Lake, Illinois to find suspects following the shooting of a local police officer, fatally shot while in pursuit of the three men on Tuesday morning. Continue reading “‘G.I. Joe’ Shooting: Massive Multi-Agency, Martial Law Drill Underway in Fox Lake, Illinois”
Stonehenge is one of the most iconic examples of a prehistoric monument we have, but it turns out that it may be dwarfed in size by something buried underground less than two miles away. Researchers have been going over the area using ground-penetrating radar and other non-invasive technologies for the past few years and their data seems to show a major new stone monument.
“Our high resolution ground penetrating radar data has revealed an amazing row of up to 90 standing stones a number of which have survived after being pushed over and a massive bank placed over the stones,” professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection (LBI ArchPro), said in a release. Continue reading “Huge, newly discovered monument dwarfs nearby Stonehenge”
More than a year after suing the Cabinet agency that oversees China’s biggest state-owned companies, lawyers for people who say their homes were ruined by Chinese drywall are still trying to get the lawsuit served.
And arguments are scheduled in December about whether other defendants are shielded as Chinese government agencies. Continue reading “Chinese Drywall Suit and Chinese Government Agencies”
Wall Street Journal – by Colleen McCain Nelson
President Barack Obama signed an executive order Monday requiring federal contractors to offer paid sick days to their employees and pressed Congress to pass legislation that would provide family and medical leave to private-sector workers.
The president’s executive action was the latest in a series of administration moves imposing new requirements on companies that contract with the U.S. government. It will give about 300,000 employees of federal contractors the chance to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave each year. Some workers who already have sick-leave benefits will have access to additional sick days. Continue reading “Obama Orders Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractor Employees”
The New American – by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
At a resort in Mexico, representatives of the U.S. government met with delegations from other countries to gauge just how far America is willing to go in letting the United Nations repeal the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.
The First Conference of State Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was held from August 24 to 27 in Cancun, Mexico. Attendees promulgated rules for future meetings, set budgets for enforcement of the terms of the treaty, and, perhaps most importantly, established procedural rules that will determine how much power agencies of the international body will have over future domestic enforcement mechanisms. Continue reading “U.S. Official: “Energetically” Enforce UN Arms Trade Treaty”
Three illegal immigrants were charged Saturday in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old Virginia high school student who was gunned down on his way to a bus stop Friday morning.
According to The Washington Post, Danny Centeno-Miranda, who attended Park View High in Loudoun County, was about 50 yards from the school bus stop when he was shot twice in the back. Continue reading “3 illegal immigrants charged in shooting death of 17-year-old high school student”
An explosion shook a chemical plant in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, state media said on Monday, though there were no immediate reports of casualties in a country on edge after blasts killed more than 160 people last month.
The blast caused a fire and thick smoke to bellow from the plant in Lishui city shortly before midnight, state radio said on its official Weibo microblog. Continue reading “Blast reported at chemical plant in eastern China”
During the annual Starbucks shareholder meeting, CEO Howard Shultz sent a message to everyone who buys coffee at the large chain. If you support traditional marriage over gay marriage, Starbucks doesn’t want your business.
Because Starbucks aims to “embrace diversity of all kinds,” Shultz told a specific shareholder, who supports traditional marriage, he should sell his shares and go to another company. Continue reading “The CEO Of Starbucks Just Issued THIS Stern Warning For Those Who Support Traditional Marriage…”
New York Times – by Shaila Dewan
An explosion of cellphone videos has brought renewed attention to police practices, provoking criticism, indictments and talk of criminal justice overhaul. Courtroom videos of judges in action, however, are far rarer.
But one surreptitious video in a small-town Georgia court has led to an overhaul of court practices there. The video showed the judge threatening to jail traffic violators who could not come up with an immediate payment toward their fines. Continue reading “A Surreptitious Courtroom Video Prompts Changes in a Georgia Town”
Another slam-dunk for American politics was offered up courtesy of master diplomat Sarah Palin. The Alaska governor praised opponent Jeb Bush for his Spanish skills, but confessed she’d rather the general population “speak American.”
One could be forgiving for wondering if such things are actually a PR move, as there’s no shortage of wacky comments coming from the Republican side, with presidential candidates all seemingly vying for the spot of top doofus. Continue reading “‘You want to be in America, speak American,’ Sarah Palin tells immigrants”
CHICAGO (AP) — Detectives investigating a lagoon at a Chicago park where dismembered body parts of a young child were discovered waded through cattail reeds and waist-high water Sunday, hoping to find more clues about the victim’s identity.
A dog with a K-9 unit sniffed though shrubbery, branches and boulders on the edge of Garfield Park on the city’s west side, while investigators felt the muddy lagoon bottom with their hands. The search began Saturday afternoon after someone reported seeing what turned out to be a left foot floating in the lagoon. Officers later found a decomposed right foot and a hand about 25 yards away, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Continue reading “Parts of toddler’s dismembered body found in Chicago park”
BERLIN (AP) — The latest news as countries across Europe cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants and refugees. All times local (CET):
1:30 p.m. Two Italian navy ships have ferried to shore 60 bodies of migrants from the April shipwreck in which as many as 800 perished. The navy says the corpses, transported Monday to Sicily, bring to 118 the number of bodies recovered using navy divers and robots. Continue reading “Italy retrieves 60 bodies from April disaster”