The Guardian – by Benjamin Lee and Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Sir Christopher Lee, known as the master of horror, has died at the age of 93 after being hospitalised for respiratory problems and heart failure.

The veteran actor, immortalised in films from Dracula to The Wicker Man, and via James Bond villainy to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, died at 8.30am on Sunday morning at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.

His wife, the former Danish model Birgit Kroencke, decided to hold back the information for four days until all family members and friends were informed. The couple had been married for more than 50 years and had one daughter, Christina.   Continue reading “Christopher Lee dies at the age of 93”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

It is no secret that US healthcare corporations have been among, if not the biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare: by “socializing” costs and spreading the reimbursement pool over the entire population in the form of a tax, pharmaceutical companies have been able to boost medical product and service costs to unprecedented levels with the help of complicit insurance companies who have subsequently passed through these costs to the consumer, in the process sending the price of biotech and pharma stocks to levels not seen since the dot com bubble.

But when it came to the highly confidential TPP, it was unclear just which corporations were dominant in pulling the strings.   Continue reading “Big Pharma Revealed As Puppetmaster Behind TPP Secrecy”

Sent to us by the author, Dan F. Sullivan

When they hear the words “survival weapons”, a lot of people think machetes, swords and other crazy things. The fact of the matter is, you don’t need to look like a Game of Thrones character in order to defend yourself without a firearm. In what follows I’m going to give you a quick list of items (some of them probably sitting in your room right now) that can double as survival weapons.   Continue reading “10 Everyday Items That Double as Survival Weapons”

Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch RT

Medical examiners don’t have to return all organs from autopsied bodies to the deceased person’s family, New York’s Appeals Court ruled on Wednesday. The decision also added that it is not necessary to inform relatives if any body parts are missing.

A verdict allowing city coroners to return the body with missing organs for burial after performing an autopsy was ruled on in New York, AP reported. The appeals court had reversed a lower court’s decision, which involved a family who unknowingly buried their son with parts of his body missing.   Continue reading “Grave concern: US medical examiners can keep organs from dead bodies, NY court rules”

Reuters/Andrew KellyRT

A female police officer fatally shot an unarmed, 28-year-old white man named Keith Bolinger for allegedly “charging” at her vehicle following his “unusual” behaviour and a short car chase in Des Moines, Iowa.

Officer Vanessa Miller fired the round that hit and killed Bolinger at the scene, when he tried to approach a police car on Tuesday evening, the Des Moines Register reported. In the lead up to the shooting, police and witnesses, said Bolinger had led two officers in a car chase through the streets Des Moines.   Continue reading “Cop kills man for ‘walking with a purpose’”

Mail.com

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s central bank lowered its key interest rate to a historic low on Thursday, responding to a slump in exports and the prospect the economy will be hurt by the outbreak of the deadly MERS virus. Officials insist that the disease, which has killed 10 people, has peaked.

Bank of Korea policymakers cut the policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.5 percent, the second rate cut this year. In March, the bank lowered the key rate and downgraded its growth forecast for Asia’s fourth-largest economy as exports continued to slump.   Continue reading “SKorea cuts key rate as MERS emerges as threat to recovery”

Mail.com

NAPLES, Italy (AP) — The new U.S. military hub setting up in Iraq’s western desert could be a model for more such train-and-advise operations — and with it likely more U.S. troops — designed to help Iraq defeat the Islamic State, the top-ranking American general said Thursday.

“Sure, we’re looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites necessary,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him to Naples, Italy, where he is meeting with U.S. commanders.   Continue reading “General: New US hub in Iraq could be model”

detentionIntellihub – by Alex Thomas

After two months of seemingly nonstop reports about urban military training throughout the United States, many readers of alternative media are rightfully worried about portions of the military being used against the American people

In fact, officials WITHIN the Pentagon have publicly voiced their concerns that President Obama may, “use force within the United States against its citizens.”   Continue reading “New York National Guard conducts training at simulated detainee facility”

Think Progress – by NATASHA GEILING

On Wednesday, both the North Carolina House and Senate voted to override Gov. Pat McCroy’s veto of House Bill 405 — referred to by opponents as North Carolina’s “ag-gag” law. The bill is set to become law January 1, and environmentalists are worried that its impacts won’t be limited to animal rights and potential whistle-blowers.

“It would have an environmental effect,” Gray Jernigan, staff attorney and communications coordinator with Waterkeeper Alliance told ThinkProgress. “If there was a spill of swine waste due to a lagoon failure, or an equipment malfunction on a hog facility, this would really make an employee second-guess whether they call environment or public health officials to come respond to the problem.”   Continue reading “The Unintended Consequences Of North Carolina’s ‘Ag-Gag’ Law”

President ObamaWND – by Bob Unruh

President Obama, whose push for vastly higher levels of immigration was recently halted a federal court in Texas, would gain vast new powers to change immigration law and practice under a looming trade agreement, according to Breitbart News.

Breitbart asked “immigration experts” to review pending trade agreement documents that have been posted online by Wikileaks and Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for Numbers USA, who reported the dangers.   Continue reading “Secret immigration powers found in Obamatrade”

martin armstrongArmstrong Economics – by Martin Armstrong

Well it has been a long time coming, but all along there have been discussions behind closed doors (never in public) that the Administrative Law Courts established with the New Deal were totally unfounded and unconstitutional. With the anniversary of Magna Carta and the right to a jury trial coming up on June 15 after 800 years, the era of Roosevelt’s big government is quietly unraveling.   Continue reading “Judge Rules Administrative Court System Illegal After 81 Years”

ABC News

Non-Hispanic whites with American Indian ancestry make up a full half of the current population of mixed-race Americans but are among the least likely to say that they are multiracial, according to a study released Thursday.

This population is also the more likely to be Republican-leaning and conservative than the rest of the multiracial population, finds the study by the Pew Research Center. But they may someday be eclipsed by other multiracial Americans, with the majority of mixed-race babies born in 2013 being either biracial white and black or biracial white and Asian.   Continue reading “Pew: White-Native American adults largest multiracial group”

Fox News

WASHINGTON –  Under threat of trade retaliation from Canada and Mexico, the House has voted to to repeal a law requiring country-of-origin labels on packages of beef, pork and poultry.

The World Trade Organization rejected a U.S. appeal last month, ruling the labels that say where animals were born, raised and slaughtered are discriminatory against the two U.S. border countries. Both have said they plan to ask the WTO for permission to impose billions of dollars in tariffs on American goods.   Continue reading “House votes to repeal country of origin label requirement for meat”

Coyote Prime – by James Quinn

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” – Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited”   Continue reading “Loving Your Servitude”

funeralBBC News – by Aleem Maqbool

Nine people died in Waco, Texas, in May after a shootout between warring motorcycle gangs at restaurant car park – but is such violence an aberration or part and parcel of such groups?

“Look at it now, it’s such a tranquil place. It was the same that Sunday afternoon, until all hell broke loose.”   Continue reading “Inside a Texas biker gang funeral”