The Cochrane Collaboration is a group of independent scientists and doctors who produce evidence based reports that are provided to healthcare decision makers around the world. They have come to the conclusion that Tamiflu and Relenza, the two drugs stockpiled for use in flu pandemics, are no better than acetaminophen for treating the condition.
A day after blinking in a showdown on the range, federal land managers pledged to pursue efforts to resolve a conflict with a southern Nevada rancher who has refused to pay grazing fees for 20 years.
Bureau of Land Management spokesman Craig Leff said the agency would continue to try to resolve the matter involving rancher Cliven Bundy “administratively and judicially.” Bundy owes more than $1 million in grazing fees, according to the bureau. Continue reading “Feds to pursue effort to end dispute with rancher”
Creating a nation of spies, Ohio DHS officials are asking smartphone users to “See Something, Send Something” with the release of an app to forward reports and photos of suspicious activity.
At the height of the foreclosure crisis in 2011, when there were five times more vacant homes than homeless people in the United States, activists began pursuing a very simple solution: moving homeless people into people-less homes. We were one such family. In February 2013, after we lost our Section 8 housing voucher and were evicted from our subsidized apartment, we moved with our two teenage children into a vacant home in the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. That’s where we collided head-on with the investment giant Blackstone Group’s massive operation to purchase foreclosed homes. Continue reading “How Financial Giant Blackstone Got the Cops to Kick Us Out of Our Home”
On a recent Friday afternoon, with budget negotiations winding down, Arizona state representative John Kavanagh was racing against the clock. His position as House Appropriations Chairman afforded him the opportunity to stuff whatever minor extra provisions he wanted into the budget before it went to a vote the following Monday, and he only had a few hours left to do it. Continue reading “Inside the Private Prison Industry’s Alarming Spread Across America”
What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things — especially when it comes to the U.S. military in Africa. For years, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained a veil of secrecy about much of the command’s activities and mission locations, consistently downplaying the size, scale, and scope of its efforts. At a recent Pentagon press conference, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra, assuring the assembled reporters that the United States “has little forward presence” on that continent. Just days earlier, however, the men building the Pentagon’s presence there were telling a very different story — but they weren’t speaking with the media. They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet. They were planning for the future and the talk was of war. Continue reading “Our Big, Fat, Not-So-Secret War in Africa”
The man who allegedly killed three people when he opened fire outside a Jewish community center and nearby retirement community in a Kansas City suburb Sunday is reportedly a 73-year-old Missouri man with a history of racist and anti-Semitic activity.
While the eyes of the nation are focused upon the rural Nevada town of Bunkerville and the Bundy Ranch, another significant land grab is underway in the other half of the country. While less physically confrontational at present, government oppression is none the less at the root of a dispute on the border between Oklahoma and Texas. It’s an on-going process, following the migration of the Red River, which the feds define differently dependent upon their their “needs.” Continue reading “Not Just Nevada, BLM Land-Grabbing 90,000 Deeded Acres in Texas Too”
One month before the Boston Marathon was attacked with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the Massachusetts State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) hosted a Pre-Boston Marathon Tabletop Exercise. One of the exercise scenarios happened to be an IED explosion during the Marathon.
This Lessons Learned document from FEMA details several exercises that were viewed as helping to prepare for the attacks that took place during the Boston Marathon. It states that, “on March 14, 2013, the MA State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) hosted the annual Pre-Boston Marathon Tabletop Exercise,” with a scenario, “focused on an IED explosion.” Continue reading “Marathon IED Drill Ran One Month Before Actual Bombings”