From the Trenches World Report

The Guardian

The Democrat Doug Jones has beaten his Donald Trump-backed Republican rival Roy Moore in the diehard Republican state of Alabama, setting off a political earthquake that shook Washington.

His victory in a special election for a US Senate seat – by a margin of 49.9 to 48.4 with 100% of precincts reporting – is a major personal blow to the president and his efforts to pass tax reform on Capitol Hill.   Continue reading “Alabama election: Democrats defeat Roy Moore”

Washington Free Beacon – by Adam Kredo

A wealthy ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has placed a bounty on the heads of two former U.S. military and intelligence officials as part of what U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon is an effort by the Turkish government to threaten and intimidate Americans who they believe are working to undermine Erdogan.

A bounty of three million Turkish lira, or nearly $800,000, was placed on the heads of former Pentagon official Michael Rubin and former top CIA official Graham Fuller for what Erdogan’s allies claim is their role in a 2016 failed coup that nearly toppled Erdogan’s ruling government.  Continue reading “Turkey Places Bounty on Two Former U.S. Government Officials”

Daily Star – by Rachel O’Donoghue

Yitu Technology has made an AI algorithm that can connect to millions of surveillance cameras and instantly recognise people.

The company – based in Shanghai, China – developed Dragonfly Eye to scan through millions of photographs that have been logged in the country’s national database.

This means it has a collection of 1.8 billion photos on file, including visitors to the country and those taken at ports and airports.   Continue reading “‘Minority Report’ Artificial Intelligence machine can identify 2 BILLION people in seconds”

CBS SF Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who became the city’s first Asian-American mayor when he was named to serve out the remainder of Gavin Newsom’s term in Jan. 2011, died suddenly early Tuesday morning, city officials said.

He was 65.

In accordance with the City Charter, Board of Supervisors President London Breed became Acting Mayor of San Francisco, effectively immediately. Breed becomes San Francisco’s first female African American mayor in any capacity.   Continue reading “San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee Dead At 65”

Yahoo News

Back in late-2015, the Federal Aviation Administration introduced new rules requiring owners of  small drones to submit their devices to a database and attach a registration code to the side of the product. In May of this year, a judge in the D.C. Circuit shot the rule down, and the FAA began the process of returning the $5 registration fee.

Now the registry is back on, courtesy of a bill signed into law earlier today by President Trump. The reinstated rules were one small piece of the $700 billion National Defense Authorization Act, about which the President reportedly said, “We need our military, it’s gotta be perfecto.” Likely the bit about drone registration didn’t even register a blip on the President’s radar.   Continue reading “Trump signs bill reinstating the FAA’s drone registration requirement”

Miami Herald

Honestie Hodges says she used to dream of being a police officer, but not anymore.

On Monday, the 11-year-old walked out the back door of her mother’s house in Michigan and officers from the Grand Rapids Police Department confronted her and two other adults, who were also leaving the house, police wrote on Facebook.   Continue reading “This 11-year-old stepped outside — and found herself on the other side of a cop’s gun, mom says”

Jon Rappoport

I’m talking about major covert ops, not small ones.

ONE: Compartmentalization.

The tasks necessary to carrying out the operation are divided among players at different levels. In a successful op, these groups of players are unaware of each other. They wouldn’t be able to confess to more than their own roles.  Continue reading “Ten essential elements of a covert op”

Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Five years after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school, advocates who are disappointed with the failure of efforts to limit access to firearms are changing their strategy.

Instead of pressuring lawmakers to push new gun-control measures through the U.S. Congress, volunteers from groups including Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America are now running for office themselves.   Continue reading “Five years after Sandy Hook, U.S. gun-control advocates switch strategy”

RT

Currencies will soon coexist on a more ‘equal footing’ in international markets, and the US dollar will be forced to share prominence with the Chinese yuan and the EU’s euro, according to global currency systems expert Barry Eichengreen.

In his book How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present, and Future, he wrote that reserve currences can and do coexist. The book, co-authored by European Central Bank economists Arnaud Mehl and Livia Chițu, was published this month.  Continue reading “Dollar’s days as world’s most important currency are numbered – Berkeley economics professor”

RT

While bitcoin’s 1,700 percent rally seems impressive, there is a cryptocurrency whose value grew much faster this year – litecoin.

On Tuesday, litecoin set another record high of $341, up an astounding 85 percent in the last 24 hours. On January 1, the virtual currency was worth just above $4.

Litecoin is significantly faster than the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. The litecoin network aims to process a block every 2.5 minutes, compared to bitcoin’s 10 minutes, which allows litecoin to have faster transaction confirmation.  Continue reading “Bitcoin rival litecoin smashes record, value up astonishing 6,000% this year”