CBS News

February was a bad month for Larry Burruel and thousands of other retired Ohio iron workers. His monthly take-home pension was cut by more than half from $3,700 to $1,600.

Things have been rough in the Rust Belt, but this was a particularly powerful punch in the pocketbook for Burruel, who started in the trade at 19 and worked 36 years before opting for early retirement to make way for younger workers. Unfortunately, this sagging industry doesn’t have enough younger workers to pay for retirees like Burruel, whose pension plan is in what the U.S. Treasury Department calls “critical and declining status.”
Continue reading “Another blow for heartland workers: Slashed pensions”

Anti-Media – by Josey Wales

Ontario, Canada — Ontario announced earlier this month that it will become the fourth Canadian government to fund a behavioral modification application that rewards users for making “good choices” in regards to health, finance, and the environment. The Carrot Rewards smartphone app, which will receive $1.5 million from the Ontario government, credits users’ accounts with points toward the reward program of their choice in exchange for reaching step goals, taking quizzes and surveys, and engaging in government-approved messages.   Continue reading “Creepy Canadian App Gives Citizens Points for Making Government-Approved Choices”

UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs – Population Division

United Nations projections indicate that over the next 50 years, the populations of virtually all countries of Europe as well as Japan will face population decline and population ageing. The new challenges of declining and ageing populations will require comprehensive reassessments of many established policies and programmes, including those relating to international migration.   Continue reading “UN March, 2000 Report on Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?”

ABC News

The Florida sinkhole that swallowed two homes last week isn’t getting any deeper, but it’s getting wider, officials said Wednesday — and one resident who’s back home after being evacuated is vowing to stay unless the hole consumes her house.

“I’m apprehensive, a little nervous,” said Patty Camunas, 57, whose family lives near the sinkhole.   Continue reading “As Florida sinkhole widens, some are determined to stay put”

AOL

DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind. (WXIN) – PETA says it will rent a billboard near the site of a Delaware County crash to honor the nearly 20 cows that were killed there on July 11.

Several other cows were injured in the crash on an exit ramp of Interstate 69 at State Road 332. The driver told police that he was driving northbound at 60 mph when a car switched lanes right in front of him, forcing him onto the exit where his rig rolled onto its left side on a hill, according to The Star Press.   Continue reading “PETA plans to put up billboard to honor cows that were killed in semi crash”

Bloomberg – by Ari Natter

House Republicans moved to make it easier to build pipelines from Mexico or Canada, as they sought to prevent a repeat of President Barack Obama’s drawn out rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The requirement for a presidential permit for pipelines that cross U.S. international borders would be eliminated under the legislation, which was approved by a vote of 254-175 in the House of Representatives. Senate approval is still required before the bill can go to President Donald Trump’s desk, and it faces longer odds there.    Continue reading “House Passes Pipeline Bill to Ease Path for More Keystones”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

When you’re a government agency, asking for a tax increase is always a hassle. As Ryan McMaken notes, for the most part, taxpayers don’t like taxes, and if asked if they want to pay more, they’re likely to often say “no.” Moreover, when public officials pass tax increases, they may face the wrath of taxpayers at the ballot box. For this reason, governments are always looking for ways to get revenue without having to use tax revenue.

One such ‘hidden’ method of seizing wealth from the taxpayers is through what is now called “civil asset forfeiture.”   Continue reading “The Feds Just Expanded Civil Asset Forfeiture ‘Laws’ Nationwide”

Washington’s Blog – by Carl Herman

Catherine Austin Fitts just published documentation of Department of Defense (DOD) official audit reports from 1998 that acknowledge “losing track” of $6.5 trillion, along with Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) admission of “losing” over $100 billion. This is euphemistically termed “unaccounted,” and literally means that DOD agrees they received these funds, agrees the funds are gone, and then claims to not have records of where the money went.   Continue reading “Documentation of US Dept of Defense admitting ‘losing’ $6.5 trillion ($65,000 per average US family), with 18 year history of ‘losing’ trillions. Your .01% illegal rogue state government at ‘work’ until ‘We the People’ demand arrests for OBVIOUS crimes in war, looting, lying”

Activist Post – by Catherine Frompovich

Everyone who is enamored with smart technology probably won’t be interested in what I’m going to talk about, but I think it’s important to know what the future foreshadows and probably will entail once 5G technologies are rolled out and become the ‘norm’.

Recently, Health Impact News published the article “New 5G Cell Towers and Smart Meters to Increase Microwave Radiation – Invade Privacy”  by John P. Thomas, which ought to get consumers thinking very seriously about how their lives and health will be affected when there will be nowhere to run to get away from electrosmog and the surveillance society forced upon everyone by utility companies.   Continue reading “High Tech Surveillance With 5G Wi-Fi”

The Intercept – by Glenn Greewald, Ryan Grim

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the U.S., governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as “the Palestine Exception” to free speech.   Continue reading “U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel”

Wolf Street – by Wolf Richter

Shares of Harley-Davidson (HOG) dropped 10% in the morning after the company reported second-quarter earnings and were down nearly 6% at the end of the day. Almost everything was bad.

Retail sales by its dealers in the US fell 9.3% in Q2, compared to a year ago, to 49,668 motorcycles. They were “down more than we anticipated,” the company said. And with “soft sales across most markets,” sales by its dealers globally fell 6.7%.   Continue reading “Harley-Davidson Spirals Down, Announces US Layoffs, Builds Factory in Thailand”

Fox News – by Brooke Singman

A Federal Court hearing will take place Thursday over a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails during her tenure at the State Department, Judicial Watch announced Wednesday.

The case, Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State, was originally filed in May 2015, and will be heard before Judge James Boasberg in Washington D.C. U.S. District Court.  Continue reading “Hillary Clinton emails: Judicial Watch going to court for new emails from State Dept.”

RT

An execution site with 17 apparent victims of extrajudicial killings was found near the Old City of West Mosul, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. The find is among a flood of evidence of atrocities being committed by Iraqi troops, the rights group pointed out.

The site was studied by “international observers, whose evidence has proven reliable in the past,” HRW said in its latest report. It was located in a Mosul neighborhood west of the Old City retaken from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) back in April.  Continue reading “HRW says mass execution site found in Mosul as Iraqi govt admits ‘individual acts’ of abuse”

Mail.com

HONOLULU (AP) — Groups have filed a human-rights complaint that aims to jump-start an investigation into conditions among foreign workers in Hawaii’s commercial fishing industry. Turtle Island Restoration Network told The Associated Press on Wednesday that they filed the complaint last week with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The filing asks the panel to determine the responsibility of the U.S. for human rights violations against foreign workers in Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet.

An Associated Press investigation into the seafood industry revealed that hundreds of men are confined to Hawaii boats that operate due to a federal loophole that exempts the foreign fishermen from most basic labor protections. Many come from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific nations to take the jobs, which can pay as little as 70 cents an hour.   Continue reading “Human rights petition sent for Hawaii fishermen”

Mail.com

MARIPOSA, Calif. (AP) — A blaze burning in foothills west of Yosemite National Park destroyed dozens of structures and forced thousands to flee Gold Rush-era towns but fire crews have been able to stop it from reaching a threatened community on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

The fire was threatening about 1,500 homes and other buildings, after already destroying 29 structures. It’s not clear what type of buildings burned. The flames are near Highway 49, a historical route winding its way up California foothills of the western Sierra Nevada dotted with little towns that sprouted along the gold Mother Lode that drew miners to California in the 1800s.   Continue reading “Thousands flee raging wildfire near Yosemite National Park”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

In an apparent nationwide system outage, Bank of America customers have been shut out from accessing their accounts and online banking on Wednesday afternoon. As of 4pm ET the outage was continuing with most online systems still frozen.  Continue reading “Nationwide Outage Hits Bank of America: Customers Unable To Access Accounts”

Yahoo News – by John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration has decided to halt the CIA’s covert program to equip and train certain rebel groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, two U.S. officials said, a move sought by Assad ally Russia.

The U.S. decision, said one of the officials, is part of an effort by the administration to improve relations with Russia, which along with Iranian-supported groups has largely succeeded in preserving Assad’s government in the six-year-civil war.   Continue reading “BS Alert: Trump ends CIA arms support for anti-Assad Syria rebels: U.S. officials”