From the Trenches World Report

Journal Sentinel- by John Diedrich and Raquel Rutledge

ATF agents have lost track of dozens of government-issued guns, after stashing them under the front seats in their cars, in glove compartments or simply leaving them on top of their vehicles and driving away, according to internal reports from the past five years obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Agents left their guns behind in bathroom stalls, at a hospital, outside a movie theater and on a plane, according to the records, obtained Tuesday by the news organization under the federal Freedom of Information Act.   Continue reading “ATF agents lost track of dozens of their own guns, reports show”

WTOP – by AARON KRAUT

The Maryland Public Service Commission on Wednesday announced it has decided on fees for Pepco customers who opt-out of the company’s smart meter installation program.

Residential and small commercial customers who decline to have smart meters installed will have to pay a $75 up-front fee and $14 monthly fee starting in July.    Continue reading “PSC Sets Fees For Opting Out Of Pepco Smart Meters”

WyBlog – by Chris Wysocki  

New Jersey’s public pension system is $47 billion in the hole. But that doesn’t derail the gravy train.

Fox News

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced Wednesday she has vetoed a controversial bill that would have allowed religious beliefs as a defense for denying service to gays and others.

Brewer, who spent several days considering whether to sign the bill, said it had “the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve.It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and no one would ever want.”   Continue reading “Arizona governor vetoes controversial bill allowing religious beliefs as defense for denying service”

Fox News

Want to reduce traffic? Don’t let poor people drive.

That’s one scheme being considered by the Director General of Dubai, Hussain Lootah, as the Emirate looks for ways to ease increasing congestion on its roads, according to The National.

“This city is growing very fast and everyone is buying their own car,” he told the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper. “If we keep going in this direction we’ll just have roads and bridges everywhere.”   Continue reading “Dubai considers minimum salary requirement for car ownership”

Fox News

Residents of the southern Arizona town of Arivaca are monitoring a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint to see how many arrests and drug seizures are made in a bid to remove longstanding interior checkpoints on the roads leading into the town.

Arivaca residents say they are regularly subjected to delays, searches, harassment and racial profiling at the checkpoints. Six residents monitored the checkpoint Wednesday on Arivaca Road, 25 miles north of the Mexico border.   Continue reading “Residents in Arizona town push to remove ‘militaristic’ border checkpoint”

My SA – by GUILLERMO CONTRERAS

SAN ANTONIO — Judges in Bexar County got them. State and federal prosecutors in San Antonio and South Texas got them. So did defense lawyers, court clerks, secretaries and bondsmen.

And now courthouse regulars are scratching their heads, struggling to remember what they spoke about with a defense lawyer at the center of a federal corruption investigation.   Continue reading “FBI to courthouse: Your phone has been tapped”

The Register – by Jack Clark

A former White House security advisor has suggested that you, dear reader, are naive if you think hosting data outside of the US will protect a business from the NSA.

“NSA and any other world-class intelligence agency can hack into databases even if they not in the US,” said former White House security advisor Richard Clarke in a speech at the Cloud Security Alliance summit in San Francisco on Monday. “Non-US companies are using NSA revelations as a marketing tool.”   Continue reading “Prez Obama cyber-guru: Think your data is safe in an EU cloud? The NSA will raid your servers”

Yahoo News

Havana (AFP) – A Russian warship was docked in Havana Wednesday, without explanation from Communist Cuba or its state media.

The Viktor Leonov CCB-175 boat, measuring 91.5 meters (300 feet) long and 14.5 meters wide, was docked at the port of Havana’s cruise ship area, near the Russian Orthodox Cathedral.   Continue reading “Russian spy ship docked in Havana”

RT News

About one week after a leak resulted in record levels of radiation near the United States’ first nuclear waste depository, more airborne radiation has been detected, according to the Associated Press.

The latest readings were confirmed on Monday by the US Department of Energy, which stated that multiple air tracking stations around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, are monitoring the situation.   Continue reading “More airborne radiation confirmed near New Mexico nuclear site”

Press TV

Newton, Mass., police said they were told by the Federal Aviation Administration of reports from pilots Tuesday evening, WCVB-TV reported. One of the planes was flying into Logan International Airport, a few miles to the east, and the other had just taken off for Atlanta.   Continue reading “Lasers pointed at planes in Boston suburb”