From the Trenches World Report

Fox News

The U.S. government is making roughly $100 billion in improper payments every year thanks to a combination of fraud, clerical errors and insufficient IRS enforcement, according to testimony at a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

“The amounts here are absolutely staggering,” Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said.

The problem of erroneous payments – largely from Medicare and other health care programs – is not a new one. But Mica said at the hearing of a House oversight subcommittee that federal agencies reported over $100 billion in improper payments during each of the last five years.   Continue reading “‘Staggering’: Government making $100B in improper payments every year”

Reuters – by Aileen Wang and Koh Gui Qing

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s trade performance improved in June but still missed market forecasts, reinforcing expectations that Beijing will have to unveil more stimulus measures to stabilize the economy and meet its 2014 growth target.

Exports rose 7.2 percent in June from a year earlier, the best pace in five months, but well below a median forecast in a Reuters poll for a rise of 10.6 percent.   Continue reading “China June trade data misses forecasts, doubts over economy linger”

KSN

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A well-known American Indian artist said police in New Mexico pulled a rifle on him after his dog pooped in his SUV and a woman mistook his cleanup efforts for a burglary.

Pueblo painter Mateo Romero told The Associated Press that a Santa Fe officer pointed a weapon at him during the bizarre misunderstanding Monday that landed him in handcuffs and in the back of a patrol car.    Continue reading “Police pull rifle on man cleaning up dog poop”

Isn’t it strange that they refuse to fight Israel and want to fight Muslims instead? Almost makes you wonder if Israel is controlling them or if they were Mossad in disguise. Also makes you wonder if Al-Qaeda is CIA and ISIS is the Mossad.

Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins

The Islamic State (IS)–formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)–says it is not interested in fighting Israel at this time. Rather, its focus remains fixed on dealing with “Muslims who have become infidels.”    Continue reading “ISIS Targeting Muslim ‘Infidels,’ Not Interested in Fighting Israel Now”

Business Insider – by Julie Bort

Microsoft is warning customers that the end is soon coming for Windows 7 in much the same way it came for Windows XP earlier this year. Microsoft will end free mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015.

That means no more security patches if hackers find holes, no more updated features or performance improvements.

This covers all versions of Windows 7, Mary Jo Foley points out.    Continue reading “In Six Months, Microsoft Will Pull The Plug On Windows 7 Support”

Police State USA

LONG GROVE, IA — A man with terminal cancer of the blood vessels is being put on trial for growing marijuana plants that he used to ease his suffering. If he survives long enough to be convicted, he could face 3 years in prison, which he believes will be a certain death sentence.

Deadly Cancer

Benton Mackenzie, 48, languishes in pain in his parents basement, diagnosed with a rare disease called angiosarcoma, which leaves him covered in tumors that appear as painful skin lesions.    Continue reading “Terminally-ill man charged with felonies for treating himself with marijuana”

Alaska Dispatch News – by Dermont Cole

FAIRBANKS — The Air Force said it will delay closing the $290 million HAARP site near Gakona until next spring, while scientists hoping to keep it from being torn down argue that the Air Force should leave diagnostic equipment in place.

Deborah Lee James, secretary of the Air Force, wrote to Sen. Lisa Murkowski today that the agency will “defer irreversible dismantling of the transmitter site until May 2015.”

Continue reading “HAARP closure postponed until 2015”

Activist Post

Civil society groups today expressed alarm at an increase in dengue incidence, leading to an emergency decree, in a town in Brazil where releases of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes are taking place.

The promise was to create genetically modified mosquitoes that would end dengue, but results from field trials conducted in Bahia, Brazil have not been published to date and did not evaluate the relation between Aedes aegypti mosquito populations and the occurrence of dengue [1]. Nevertheless, the Brazilian regulator Comissão Técnica Nacional de Biossegurança (CTNBio) recently gave the green light to the commercialization of the technology proposed by Moscamed Brazil in partnership with the English company Oxitec and the Universidade de São Paulo.   Continue reading “GMO Mosquito Trial Has Reverse Effect, Causes Dengue Emergency”

PanAm Post – Belen Marty

Argentina’s government appears to be following Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual. Daniela Dupuy, a prosecutor with close ties to President Kirchner, has launched an investigation into the online activity of 11 Twitter users and requested the assistance of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). These 11 users have been accused of “harassment,” based on their demonstration of support for a public prosecutor who was recently removed by Argentina’s judiciary.   Continue reading “Argentina Recruits DHS to Target Dissident Twitter Users”

NPR – by Dan Charles

Somewhere in Iowa, volunteers are earning $900 apiece by providing blood samples after eating bits of a banana kissed with a curious tinge of orange.

It’s the first human trial of a banana that’s been genetically engineered to contain higher levels of beta carotene, the nutrient that our body converts into vitamin A. Researchers want to confirm that eating the fruit does, in fact, lead to higher vitamin A levels in the volunteers’ blood.   Continue reading “Globe-Trotting GMO Bananas Arrive For Their First Test In Iowa”

JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Twenty Jewish organizations urged President Obama and Congress to deal humanely with the unaccompanied children and refugees from Central America who are crossing the U.S. border.

The statement released Tuesday, which was written by the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, calls on the government to “welcome the stranger” in dealing with those entering the United States through Mexico from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.   Continue reading “Jewish groups call on Obama to ‘welcome the stranger’”

ABC News

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation says officers are questioning a person of interest in a fatal shooting at a National Guard armory.

Bureau spokesman Josh DeVine says the shooting happened about 5 p.m. Wednesday in the town of Lobelville, about 75 miles southwest of Nashville. A longtime member of the National Guard was killed.   Continue reading “1 Dead in Tennessee Armory Shooting; 1 in Custody”

EFF – by Parker Higgins

When EFF joined with a coalition of partners to fly an airship over the NSA’s Utah Data Center, the goal was to emphasize the need for accountability in the NSA spying debate. In particular, we wanted to point people to our new Stand Against Spying scorecard for lawmakers. But while we were up there, we got a remarkable and unusual view.

Today, continuing in the spirit of transparency and building on earlier efforts to shed some light on the physical spaces the US intelligence community has constructed, we’re releasing a photograph of the Utah Data Center into the public domain, completely free of copyright and other restrictions. That means it can be used for any purpose—copied, edited, or even sold—online or in print, with or without attribution to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We hope that making such an image available will help support conversations about the actions of the NSA.   Continue reading “Releasing a Public Domain Image of the NSA’s Utah Data Center”

Christian Post – by Morgan Lee

A Kentucky church that hired a pastor with full knowledge that he’s a registered sex offender, is now the scene of an another alleged crime in which the minister is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy who attended the church.

Roy Neal Yoakem, who leads the New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville, Kentucky, allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy at the church and police believe that another incident occurred in a nearby town, reported WSMV.   Continue reading “Kentucky Church Hires Registered Sex Offender as Pastor; Man Now Faces Charges of Alleged Rape, Sodomy of 14-Y-O Boy at Church”

Natural News – by J.D. Heyes

The darling of the Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, says she supports genetically modified food, making her no different from most other American politicians from both major political parties.

In a recent speech before the world’s largest biotechnology meeting in San Diego, Clinton — who commands speaking fees of about $225,000 per speech — was enthusiastic in her support for the use of GMOs in farming and agriculture in general. She also spoke positively of using taxpayer-funded federal financial subsidies as payoffs to American companies, to keep them from relocating outside the United States. Continue reading “Hillary Clinton says she supports GMOs”

RT News

Iraq says “terrorist groups” have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country’s north. Iraq’s UN envoy has appealed for help to “stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad.”

According to Iraq’s UN ambassador, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, about 40 kilograms of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University. He added that such materials “can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.”    Continue reading “Sunni insurgents take over nuclear materials in northern Iraq”