From the Trenches World Report

Daily Mail

A judge has been found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in his chambers at a courthouse in Texas.

The body of Tom Greenwell, 57, was discovered by cleaners at 7pm last night – two hours after the court closed – on the eighth storey of the Nueces County Courthouse, in Corpus Christi, south Texas.

Police initially raced to the scene believing they were hunting for an active shooter, but were seen soon after calmly leaving the courthouse and are now believed to be treating the death as a suicide.   Continue reading “Judge found dead ‘from gunshot wound to the head’ in Texas courthouse in suspected suicide”

Zero Hedge- by Tyler Durden

Over a decade ago, it was discovered that the NSA embedded backdoor access into Windows 95, and likely into virtually all other subsequent internet connected, desktop-based operating systems. However, with the passage of time, more and more people went “mobile”, and as a result the NSA had to adapt. And adapt they have: as Bloomberg reports, “The NSA is quietly writing code for Google’s Android OS.”   Continue reading “The NSA Has Inserted Its Code Into Android OS, Or Three Quarters Of All Smartphones”

ABC News – by Colleen Curry

Extremely overweight Boy Scouts are banned this year from the scouts’ annual Jamboree, which is expected to be the most physically-demanding in the organization’s history.

The Boy Scouts of America organization said they published their height/weight requirements for this year’s national gathering years in advance so scouts would have a reason to work toward healthy goals.   Continue reading “Obese Boy Scouts Banned From Jamboree”

World Events and the Bible

(BBC) – A car bomb has exploded north of the Syrian capital Damascus killing at least 13 people including 10 policemen, activists say.

The overnight blast struck near a police station in the town of Deir Atiyeh, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.   Continue reading “The Burden of Damascus: Car Bomb and Mortars Rock Syrian Capital”

RT News

Police officers in Chicago, Illinois can remotely access video shot from any of the city’s 24,000 closed-circuit television cameras, and they are already using that ability to nab suspects who thought they could outsmart surveillance.

According to a recent Chicago Sun-Time article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Frank Main, police officers in the Windy City recently issued their first arrest stemming from the use of space-age facial-recognition technology coupled with thousands of cameras that collect live video in real-time at all hours of the day.   Continue reading “Chicago police start using facial-recognition software to arrest suspects”

SCRP – by Ed Joyce, July 5, 2013

It was two years ago Friday (July 5) that a mentally ill homeless man was involved in a violent confrontation with Fullerton police officers. Kelly Thomas died five days later.

Ex-Fullerton police officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli since have been charged in connection with Thomas’ death and are set to go to trial on October 18.   Continue reading “Kelly Thomas beating: 2 years later, ex-Fullerton police officers face trial”

RIA Novosti

TOKYO, July 16 (RIA Novosti) – Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force had to scramble fighter jets in response to flights by Russian military aircraft near Japanese airspace and over the disputed Kuril Islands on Monday, local media reported.   Continue reading “Japan Scrambles Fighter Jets to Track Russian Bombers”

IntelliHub – by Billy, Policing The Police

Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Metropolitan Police Force, was not only a Politician, he was also a Pig Farmer, and is credited with creating the popular “Tamworth” breed.

Ordinarily, It was prohibited to bring livestock into London, because of the filth and disease that butchering them caused. But politics being politics, Peel used his position so he could get away with driving his pigs from his farm in Tamworth, through the centre of London to Smithfield Market, without having to butcher them first, and thereby command a higher price for them live, at market.   Continue reading “How Policemen Got the Nickname “Pigs””

CNN -by Castalia Pascual and David Simpson

Panamanian authorities looking for drugs on a North Korean-flagged vessel instead found military equipment hidden among a cargo of brown sugar.

Authorities seized the vessel and the undeclared haul of weaponry in the Panamanian port of Manzanillo on Monday night, Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli said.   Continue reading “Panama finds weapons hidden in North Korean ship arriving from Cuba”

Natural News – by Carolanne Wright

If you live on the West Coast of the U.S. or Canada, you may want to reconsider your water filtration method as well as how you select and prepare food. Evidently, the nightmare of Fukushima is far from over – another 16 million years to be exact. Due to the astonishingly long half-life of iodine-129, the whole ecosystem of the Pacific Coast will be contaminated pretty much forever.   Continue reading “Fukushima update – North American food supply poisoned along Pacific Coast”

Jim Stone Freelance

Americans get guilt tripped by their own government for driving huge gas sucking cars. Americans are called wasteful, and are often shown graphs of how much energy they use compared to the rest of the world. But what if the problem is not the American people, but those who govern them?   Continue reading “50 plus MPG cars not allowed in the U.S. or Canada”

Oil Price – by Joao Peixe

Shunichi Tanaka, the head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan, and the country’s chief nuclear regulator announced on Wednesday, that the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, has been leaking contaminated water into the ocean for the two years since the accident that saw three of the plants six reactors suffer a meltdown.

The problem stems from the fact that ground water is leaking into the basement of the damaged reactors, and becoming contaminated, and whilst that water is being pumped out and stored in huge tanks on site, the inflow has not yet been stopped, meaning that ever more ground water enters the basement and becomes contaminated.   Continue reading “Contaminated Water has been Leaking into Ocean for Two Years at Fukushima”

Survival Blog – by Carol J.

I would also recommend the Emergency Response Guidebook published jointly by the USDOT and Canadian and Mexican Transportation agencies. This reference (ERG) lets you identify the material being transported by pipeline, tanker truck, or railcar. As a guide for First Responders to a HazMat accident, it also lists specific hazards and evacuation distances in the event of spill or fire.

I use this book to evaluate how at risk I am to accidents involving bulk materials being transported nearby. You need to pay attention to the placard (label) information on the side of the tanker. Continue reading “NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards”

Mail.com

MIAMI (AP) — For decades, Cuban and U.S. diplomats have faced strict limits on their travel within the Cold War enemy countries.

Cuban diplomats at the United Nations in New York cannot go 25 miles beyond Columbus Circle in Manhattan or past the Beltway loop circling Washington without the permission of the U.S. State Department.   Continue reading “Cuban, US diplomats increasingly allowed to travel”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The bitter standoff between Wal-Mart and Washington, D.C. officials over the city’s effort to impose a higher minimum wage on big-box retailers is fueling a wider debate about how far cities should go in trying to raise pay for low-wage workers — and whether larger companies should be required to pay more.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is fuming about a “living wage” bill approved by the D.C. Council that has an unusual twist — it would apply only to certain large retailers, forcing them to pay employees at least $12.50 an hour. That’s nearly 50 percent higher than city’s minimum wage of $8.25 an hour.   Continue reading “Wal-Mart faceoff with DC fuels minimum wage debate”