From the Trenches World Report

Geek Wire – by Monica Nickelsburg

Autonomous delivery robots will soon be allowed on Washington state’s sidewalks.

On Tuesday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill into law that establishes new regulations for “personal delivery devices” like the delivery robot Amazon unveiled earlier this year. Continue reading “Washington state greenlights delivery robots on sidewalks”

Greenwich Time – by Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has signaled in recent weeks that it may seek the permanent renewal of a surveillance law that has, among other things, enabled the National Security Agency to gather and analyze Americans’ phone records as part of terrorism investigations, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the matter.  Continue reading “Permanent renewal of NSA law possible”

The American Mirror – by Victor Skinner

It’s no secret that smuggling illegal immigrants across the porous U.S.-Mexico border is big business for coyotes and cartels.

But Border Patrol officials are warning that the crimes are increasingly involving kids as cover, a trend inspired by the government’s failed immigration policies that’s driving the crisis at the border.  Continue reading “Border Patrol: Kids ‘being rented’ by migrants, then ‘recycled back’ to country of origin”

CNN – by Oliver Darcy

Jones and his media outlet InfoWars had previously been banned from Facebook (FB) in August 2018, but had maintained a presence on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. On Thursday, Jones and InfoWars will be barred from Instagram as well.  Continue reading “Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and other ‘dangerous’ voices banned by Facebook and Instagram”

The Mind Unleashed – by Derrick Broze

Despite a wealth of public information detailing the U.S. government’s secret warrantless mass surveillance programs, a federal judge has blocked a lawsuit, claiming that revealing any details would threaten national security.

A federal judge has ruled that the federal government can assert state secrets privilege to keep details of the warrantless mass surveillance programs secret. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Jeffery White brings an end to a legal battle that has lasted more than ten years as five Americans sought to reveal the full scope of the controversial spying program. The plaintiffs have been represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) since 2008—several years before whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked classified files revealing the NSA’s massive spying apparatus.  Continue reading “Federal Judge Sides With Federal Government, Rules Mass Surveillance Can Remain Secret”

Digital Trends – by Jon Martindale

A new Russian law which makes it possible for the government to sever the country’s internet connections to the outside world has the support of less than a quarter of the population, but it’s coming into force anyway. The new “Runet” law is packaged as important for national security, but detractors are concerned that it could see the authorities cut off its citizens’ access to internet sites and services outside of Russia entirely.  Continue reading “Russians don’t like the new internet censorship law, but it’s happening anyway”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

While the aggregate U-3 US unemployment rate fell to its lowest since Dec 1969 (matching the initial jobless claims records), we suspect President Trump will be more glowingly positive about another data item that dropped this morning.  Continue reading “Hispanic Unemployment Plunges To Record Low”

Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) – The founder of Insys Therapeutics Inc on Thursday became the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executive to be convicted in a case tied to the U.S. opioid crisis, when he and four colleagues were found guilty of participating in a scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe an addictive painkiller.

A federal jury in Boston found John Kapoor, the drugmaker’s former chairman, and his co-defendants guilty of racketeering conspiracy for engaging in a scheme that also misled insurers into paying for the drug.  Continue reading “Founder, execs of drug company guilty in conspiracy that fed opioid crisis”

KOCO News – by Abigail Ogle

GUTHRIE, Okla. — A 28-year-old man who is a young father suffered a major stroke.

Josh Hader of Guthrie tore an artery in his neck leading to his brain. The cause of the stroke? He popped his neck.  Continue reading “28-year-old Oklahoma man suffers stroke from cracking his neck”

New York Times – by Jesse Barron

The news spread around Huntsville, Ala., in the winter of 2014. Remington, the country’s oldest gun maker, had decided to expand from its historic home in upstate New York to a gigantic former Chrysler factory near the airport. Workers at the new plant, the company said, would earn a minimum average of $19.50 an hour assembling shotguns, pistols, hunting rifles and AR-15-style semiautomatics. The city’s mayor wrote in a newspaper column that he was thrilled that Remington’s quest for a new factory space had ended in Huntsville. He calculated the typical annual salary as $42,500.  Continue reading “How America’s Oldest Gun Maker Went Bankrupt: A Financial Engineering Mystery”

MIT Technology Review – by Antonio Regalado

In September 2016, Jennifer Doudna called a new colleague named Kyle Watters to her office. By then, the University of California, Berkeley, biochemist was famous as the coinventor of CRISPR. The invention of the fast and versatile tool to edit genes had vaulted her to global notoriety and to considerable wealth. She was the founder of several startup companies and had collected millions in science-prize money.   Continue reading “The search for the kryptonite that can stop CRISPR”

The Guardian

The US Defense Department expects China to add military bases around the world to protect its investments in it ambitious One Belt One Road global infrastructure program, according to an official report released on Thursday.

Beijing currently has just one overseas military base, in Djibouti, but is believed planning others, including possibly Pakistan, as it seeks to project itself as a global superpower.  Continue reading “China will build string of military bases around world, says Pentagon”

Yahoo News

DONNA, Texas — Thousands of migrant families and children apprehended crossing the U.S. border in the Lower Rio Grande Valley will spend their first night in America in a vast air-conditioned tent complex with access to showers, hot meals and cots to sleep on.

The massive 40,000-square-foot white vinyl tent erected in less than a month on farm country owned by the federal government about a mile from the Rio Grande was set to open for the first time Thursday to handle what authorities described as a 240 percent increase in apprehensions in the Border Patrol sector anchored by the city McAllen. Continue reading “Immigration officials in Texas showcase huge new tents to house migrant families”

Sputnik

Before US Vice President Mike Pence took the podium to address the sailors of the USS Harry S. Truman Tuesday, the members of the armed forces were reportedly given particularly puzzling instruction on how to welcome the VP.

On Tuesday afternoon, Pence traveled to Norfolk Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia, to deliver a message from US President Donald Trump while also recognizing the 2,000-plus missions the USS Harry S. Truman and its 7,500 sailors have been a part of in the past year.  Continue reading “US Navy Sailors Told to Clap Like They’re ‘at a Strip Club’ for Pence”

Miss Liberty

Perhaps as many as a hundred million people were victims of communism in the last century, deliberately rounded up, shot, starved, or simply forced to march into snowy wasteland until dead, exterminated by communist regimes.  Continue reading “May 1: Victims of Communism Day | Ten Films to Honor the Dead”

A store that sells new husbands has opened in Toronto, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!  Continue reading “Husband Store”