Year: 2019

Forbes – by Dan Alexander

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced he is “seriously considering running for president” Sunday night, raising the prospect of a 2020 election with at least two billionaire candidates.

As far as billionaires go, Schultz and Trump could hardly be more different. The former Starbucks CEO grew up in subsidized housing in Brooklyn. He started working at Starbucks in 1982, back when it was just a modest Seattle business. Today the coffee chain has more than 15,000 stores around the world, and Schultz is worth an estimated $3.4 billion. “I’m still this kid from Brooklyn who wanted to fight his way out,” Schultz said when he appeared on the cover of Forbes’ billionaires issue three years ago.   Continue reading “Howard Schultz Explains Why His Billionaire Candidacy Would Be Different Than Trump’s”

The Grayzone – by Ben Norton

The right-wing opposition leader that the United States is trying to undemocratically install as Venezuela’s president immediately set his sights on the country’s state-owned oil company, which he is hoping to restructure and move toward privatization. He is also seeking money from the notorious International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fund his unelected government.

On January 23, US President Donald Trump recognized the little-known, US-educated opposition politician Juan Guaidó as the supposed “interim president” of Venezuela. Within 48 hours, Guaidó quickly tried to seize control of Venezuela’s major US-based oil refiner and use its revenue to help bankroll his US-backed coup regime.   Continue reading “Venezuela’s US-Backed Coup Leader Immediately Targets State Oil Company, Requests IMF Money”

The Guardian – by Jason Wilson

In Washington state, a freshly implemented ballot initiative and a raft of new bills may produce some of the tightest firearms regulations in the US. But standing in the way is a group of rural law enforcement officers who say point blank that they won’t enforce any of it.

The Klickitat county sheriff, Bob Songer, is one of them. He told the Guardian that the initiative passed last November “is unconstitutional on several grounds. I’ve taken the position that as an elected official, I am not going to enforce that law”.   Continue reading “The sheriffs resisting Washington’s new gun laws: ‘I’m not going to enforce that’”

The Organic Prepper

Yet another recall has hit the shelves of a store near you. This time, it’s something really surprising. It’s fresh fruit.

The FDA has announced that peaches, nectarines, and plums sold in more than a dozen states could potentially be tainted with Listeria monocytogenes. Jac. Vandenberg, Inc. of Yonkers, New York has recalled 1,727 cartons of peaches, 1,207 cartons of nectarines and 365 cartons of plums.   Continue reading “RECALL: Peaches, Plums, and Nectarines Could Be Tainted with Listeria”

Collective Evolution – by Jeremy R. Hammond

As I have covered in previous articles for Children’s Health Defense, the fundamental assumptions underlying the recommendation of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that everyone aged six months and up should get an annual flu shot are unsupported by scientific evidence. Examining a case study from the New York Times, we’ve seen how the corporate media manufacture consent for public vaccine policy by grossly misinforming their audiences about the science—and how, in doing so, the media are just following the CDC’s example. We’ve seen how the CDC uses deceptive fear marketing to increase demand for influenza vaccines, and how the CDC’s claims that flu vaccination significantly reduces deaths among the elderly have been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community.   Continue reading “Why You Can’t Trust the CDC on Vaccines”

Yahoo News

A missing 3-year-old boy who was found alive after enduring two days of heavy rain and freezing temperatures says it was a bear who kept him safe and warm.

Authorities from the FBI and U.S. Marines professional search teams joined up with volunteers to search for Casey Hathaway when he vanished from outside his grandmother’s house in North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.   Continue reading “3-year-old boy lost in freezing forest for two days says bear kept him safe”

Fox 2

(WJBK) – A Detroit Police Commander from the 6th precinct was arrested early Saturday morning for drunk driving and causing an accident.

Police say Cmdr. Johnny Thomas was driving under the influence when he smashed into a stopped car at Mack and St. Antoine around 12:30 a.m.    Continue reading “Detroit Police Commander arrested for drunk driving on Detroit’s east side”

The Mind Unleashed – by Elias Marat

As machine-learning algorithms, big data methods and artificial intelligence are increasingly used in the toolkit of U.S. law enforcement agencies, many are worrying that the existing biases of the criminal justice system are simply being automated – and deepened.

Police departments are increasingly relying on predictive algorithms to figure out where to deploy their forces by blanketing cities with a mesh of human-based and computerized surveillance technology including, but not limited to, data-mining, facial recognition, and predictive policing programs.   Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence Is Already Sending People to Jail — and Getting It Wrong”

Washington Post – by David Leffler

Pushed to the brink by mounting debt, compassion fatigue and social media attacks from angry pet owners, veterinarians are committing suicide at rates higher than the general population, often killing themselves with drugs meant for their patients.

On a brisk fall evening in Elizabeth City, N.C., Robin Stamey sat in her bed and prepared to take her own life.   Continue reading “Suicides among veterinarians become a growing problem”

Press TV

More than 65 percent of adults in Britain believe that the Holocaust, the alleged genocide of Jews during the Second World War, has not taken place in the way that historians claim, a new study shows.

The study, covering 2,000 adults in the UK and conducted by The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, showed more than two-thirds of British adults “grossly” underestimated the number of people believed to be killed in the historic process.   Continue reading “Two-thirds of UK adults dispute number of Holocaust victims: Study”

The Atlantic – by Sidney Fussell

Walgreens is piloting a new line of “smart coolers”—fridges equipped with cameras that scan shoppers’ faces and make inferences on their age and gender. On January 14, the company announced its first trial at a store in Chicago in January, and plans to equip stores in New York and San Francisco with the tech.

Demographic information is key to retail shopping. Retailers want to know what people are buying, segmenting shoppers by gender, age, and income (to name a few characteristics) and then targeting them precisely. To that end, these smart coolers are a marvel.

Continue reading “Now Your Groceries See You, Too”

Yahoo News

A St. Louis police officer was charged with manslaughter Friday for allegedly shooting a colleague as the two played Russian Roulette, authorities said.

Officer Nathaniel Hendren, 29, shot Officer Katlyn Alix, 24, in his apartment in the city’s Carondelet neighborhood early Thursday in the presence of a third officer, police said.

Hendren was charged with involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, police said. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.   Continue reading “St. Louis cop charged in Russian Roulette shooting death of fellow officer, police say”