From the Trenches World Report

Yahoo News – by Liz Goodwin

Police officers responding to protests in a St. Louis suburb Wednesday night were outfitted in fatigues, wore gas masks and body armor, carried military-style rifles, and were backed by tanklike armored vehicles as they sought to clear the streets.

Tear gas, smoke bomb explosions and the pop-pop-pop of nonlethal projectiles added to the picture, as photographs and video from Ferguson, Missouri, depicted a scene more reminiscent of a war zone than a civil rights protest against the police shooting Saturday of an unarmed teen in the largely low-income Midwestern town of about 20,000 people.    Continue reading “Why do Ferguson’s police officers look like soldiers?”

Yahoo News – by T.C. Sottek, The Verge

A suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, has been under a dramatic siege since Saturday, when a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. In the wake of the killing, protests have engulfed the community — drawing a heavy-handed police crackdown with St. Louis County police officers armed with assault weapons andoutfitted with military equipment. Many of the striking images have come from reporters on the front lines, but also from citizens and their smartphones.

Continue reading “Reminder: You Have a Right to Record the Police”

Tech Dirt – by Mike Masnick

We’ve been debating internally whether or not to cover the mess that is currently going on in Ferguson, Missouri. There has been plenty of attention paid to the protests and the failures by police there — and we frequently cover problems with police, as well as the militarization of police, which was absolutely on display in Ferguson (if you’ve been under a rock, police killed an unarmed teenager there last week, leading to protests over the past few days — and the police have been handling the situation… poorly, to say the least). Continue reading “SWAT Team Shows Up In Ferguson, Detains Reporters Live Tweeting Their Actions”

You know it just leaves me with a deer in the headlights look on my face when I see ignorance of this magnitude. All I could think of to say was uh really.

Fox News

Probably the first rule of committing armed robbery, don’t post yourself with the cash you stole on your social media account.

But that’s exactly what Marcus Kalani Watson and Rogussia Eddie Allen Danielson did, according to an Aug. 11 FBI affidavit made public Aug. 12.   Continue reading “Alleged Hawaii bank robbers post pictures of themselves with cash on Facebook”

RT

Israel derailed the Obama administration’s attempts to mediate the Gaza crisis by striking an arms deal with the Pentagon and using leverage on the Congress, the WSJ reported. The relations are now at a low and the quarrel is personal.

The strain between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has left the US in a position of an observer rather than active mediator, as Egypt leads the effort brokering ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, reports the Wall Street Journal.   Continue reading “‘Blindsided’: Israel uses US DoD, Congress ties to sideline White House on Gaza – report”

Mail.com

PLACITAS, N.M. (AP) — For decades, free-ranging horses have roamed this mountain village in New Mexico, galloping on residents’ property, dashing along roads and attracting tourists and wildlife fans hoping to catch a glimpse.

Their presence has long defined Placitas. But the horses are now drawing the ire of some residents who say their growing numbers are hurting the delicate desert landscape because they eat what little vegetation there is amid an ongoing drought.    Continue reading “Feral horse fight brewing in New Mexico village”

Mail.com

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — One of the main reservoirs in the vast Colorado River water system that is struggling to serve the booming Southwest will get more water this year, but that won’t be enough to pull Lake Mead back from near-record lows.

Water managers, farmers and cities throughout the region have been closely watching the elevation at the reservoir behind Hoover Dam. It is at its lowest level since the dam was complete and the lake first was filled in the 1930s.   Continue reading “More water headed to struggling Lake Mead”

The Intercept – by Glenn Greenwald

The intensive militarization of America’s police forces is a serious menace about which a small number of people have been loudly warning for years, with little attention or traction. In a 2007 paper on “the blurring distinctions between the police and military institutions and between war and law enforcement,” the criminal justice professor Peter Kraska defined “police militarization” as “the process whereby civilian police increasingly draw from, and pattern themselves around, the tenets of militarism and the military model.”

The harrowing events of the last week in Ferguson, Missouri – the fatal police shooting of an unarmed African-American teenager, Mike Brown, and the blatantly excessive and thuggish response to ensuing community protests from a police force that resembles an occupying army – have shocked the U.S. media class and millions of Americans. But none of this is aberrational.   Continue reading “The Militarization of U.S. Police: Finally Dragged Into the Light by the Horrors of Ferguson”

RT

The governor of Missouri will reportedly relieve St. Louis County law enforcement from policing the ongoing demonstrations in the town of Ferguson, paving the way for possible state or federal intervention.

Rep Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri told Bloomberg News on Thursday morning that Gov. Jay Nixon, also a Democrat, had confirmed to him that county police will be pulled from their duties in Ferguson, where outrage continues to erupt following the officer-involved shooting and killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed teenager, on Saturday.   Continue reading “St. Louis County police will no longer be involved in policing Ferguson”

Crisis Survival Tips – by jeremym

Cigarettes are one of the main causes of death. More than 480, 000 people are dying because of cigarettes. They contribute to a lot of serious health problems and chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, diminished immune function, emphysema, heart disease, and reproductive issues.

But cigarettes can be used in survival situations and they can be helpful for your survival.

Here are the 8 survival uses of cigarettes.   Continue reading “8 Survival Uses of Cigarettes”

Wonderful Engineering

Coca Cola is one of the most beloved and enjoyed soft drink that you’ll find on Earth. However, did you know that instead of just gulping it down you could use it to generate electricity too? Well here’s a DIY guide that will tell you how to do it. Make sure you perform the task in a well-ventilated area   Continue reading “Here’s How You Can Make A Battery Out Of A Coca Cola Can”

Off Now – by Lori Rardon

Whenever I explain the OffNow Project to someone, they initially respond enthusiastically.  Something to the effect of, “Wow!  That’s cool! The federal government shouldn’t be spying on us!”  But when I further explain that the idea behind OffNow includes shutting off state supplied resources to NSA facilities – like the water necessary to cool the super-computers at the Bluffdale, Utah spy facility – those same people get nervous. “Shutting off the water seems like an extreme move.  Can we even  do that?” they ask.     Continue reading “Nevada Beats Feds By Turning Off Their Water on Yucca Mountain”

Off the Grid News – by Kimberlee Hertzer

Remember when you were a kid and the only time that you could watch cartoons was on Saturday morning? Or if lucky enough, you got to stay up on the weekend to watch a new episode of your favorite television show.

But times have changed. And so has television.

Today it’s not uncommon for children and adults to watch anywhere from three to six hours of TV a day. Is it harmful to watch this much? Yes.   Continue reading “New Study: Watching TV Can Actually Kill You”

Reuters

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has signed into law a measure giving police chiefs authority to turn down a resident’s requests to buy a rifle or shotgun if they believe the person may be a danger.

The measure broadens the authority of police, who were already allowed to deny sales of handguns to people who failed background checks. The new measure gives a police chief 90 days to petition a court to deny a firearms identification card to someone the chief believes to be unfit.   Continue reading “Massachusetts governor signs law tightening state gun rules”

Madison St.Clair Record – by Nancy Thorner

As President Obama considers sidestepping Congress to loosen U.S. immigration policy, a Reuters poll shows that 70 percent of Americans are deeply worried that illegal immigration is threatening this nation’s culture and economy. Because Congress cannot agree on comprehensive immigration reform with amnesty as its goal, Obama is threatening to act alone in the next few weeks through an executive order to give work permits to up to five millions undocumented immigrants and delay some deportations.   Continue reading “Illinois taxpayers foot $4.7 billion cost of illegal immigration”

Huffington Post

The Huffington Post’s Ryan J. Reilly and the Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery were arrested Wednesday evening while covering the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer last week. The journalists were released unharmed, but their detentions highlighted the town’s ramped up police presence, which has left numerous residents injured by rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas during protests held every night after Brown’s death.

SWAT officers roughed up the reporters inside a McDonald’s, where both journalists were working. Reilly snapped a photo, prompting cops to request his identification.   Continue reading “Huffington Post Reporter Arrested In Ferguson”