Iran, Russia sign agreement on border coop…
December 30, 2018
Explaining the results of a recent trip of an Iranian Interior Ministry’s delegation to Russia, Heidari said “the border cooperation agreement between Iran and Moscow was signed after four meetings and rounds of negotiations between experts [of the two sides] and will be implemented by the Russian side.”
Heidari added “the exchange of experiences between the two countries on border control, the use of efficient electronic and optical technology, and smart border management were among the major issues discussed on the trip.”
Tear gas fired as Yellow Vests and police clash in French city of Rouen…
December 30, 2018
Journalist Simon Louvet, who is in Rouen, tweeted: “The GJ (Gilet Jaunes) are in the streets around Jeanne D'Arc Street and are gassed, they flee running and regroup.”
The protesters also set fire to the entrance of the local office of the Bank of France, the country’s central bank
Away from the violence, a large group of protesters also marched through the streets, waving French flags and chanting slogans.
Doctor Reportedly Exposed to Ebola in Africa Brought to U.S. Hospital…
December 30, 2018
The physician, who is not identified for privacy reasons, was privately flown to Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday afternoon and transported to University of Nebraska Medical Center, officials with the medical center announced Saturday.
Although the physician had been exposed to Ebola, officials say the doctor is not showing symptoms of the virus and will be monitored in a secure facility for up to two weeks.
52% back Trump on Syria, Afghanistan troop reductions…
December 30, 2018
Fifty-two percent of respondents said they back the moves in Syria and Afghanistan, which came as a surprise to the president’s own national security advisers when it was announced last week. By contrast, 48 percent said they oppose the troop withdrawals and reductions, the poll found.
Trump announced he would completely remove the approximately 2,000 troops in Syria battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), while he said he would cut in half the roughly 14,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
House GOP probe into FBI, DOJ comes to an end…
Read the Letter...
December 30, 2018
The joint probe — led by the House Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committees — sought to investigate what Republicans allege was bias against President Trump by the top brass at the two agencies during the heated presidential race.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) made the announcement just days before Democrats are poised to take hold of the committee gavels in the House. He did so by notifying the top leaders of the FBI and DOJ — acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and FBI Director Christopher Wray — that the probe has concluded, and by releasing a set of key findings and observations from the investigation.
[...]
One of Goodlatte’s main takeaways from the probe matched the accusations Republicans have leveled throughout the investigation: The FBI and Justice Department treated Trump unfairly.Transformer explosion caught on camera in Kenner, Louisiana…
December 29, 2018
According to Entergy Louisiana officials, the peak of the outage resulted in 10,100 residents without energy in the Kenner area around 5:30 a.m. after massive sparks sprung from power lines up and down Power Boulevard.
[...]
Experts say while lightning strikes are some common way transformers explode, but rain and strong winds can cause power lines to touch or tear.Russian weapon 27 times faster than speed of sound…
December 29, 2018
Russia’s new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defenses useless at a small fraction of their cost, officials said Thursday.
The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle flies 27 times faster than the speed of sound, making it impossible to intercept, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told Russian state television.
[...]
In Wednesday’s test, the weapon was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. The Kremlin said it successfully hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on Kamchatka, 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) away.Tylenol Damages The Brains of Children, Research Reveals…
December 29, 2018
Millions use Tylenol on a daily basis without concern, but it has a wide range of toxic side effects you should be aware of, especially if you are pregnant or use it with your children.
Yellow Vest protesters Week 7 – “Fake News Journalists Come Down” and “Macron out!”…
December 29, 2018
The protesters chanted various versions of "Fake news journalists come down," and "Macron out!" at the TV station which one protester told RT France spreads false information about the movement, while purposefully understating the size of its demonstrations.
Nxivm lawyers use Scientology to dispute forced labor allegations…
December 29, 2018
That’s the argument lawyers for actress Allison Mack are making in their latest effort to get sex trafficking and forced labor charges against the “Smallville” star tossed out of Brooklyn Federal Court.
Mack and Nxivm leader Keith Raniere are accused of duping women into joining a master-slave group by getting them to hand over damaging “collateral” like naked photos of themselves and accusations against their loved ones, then forcing them to work for free and have sex with Raniere.
FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: Ocasio-Cortez Tries To Run From Her Suburban Past…
December 30, 2018
Ocasio-Cortez fired back at the facts with social-justice rhetoric, accusing a recent fact-teller of “mansplaining” her childhood to her. But Ocasio-Cortez did, in fact, grow up in Yorktown Heights in Westchester County.
Ocasio-Cortez’s father reportedly bought the house in Yorktown Heights when the socialist was approximately two years old. She reportedly moved from Parkchester, in the Bronx, to Yorktown Heights when she was five years of age. A glowing New York Times profile of the socialist starlet said the family moved to Westchester County “in search of better schools.”
An inside peek at the erotic New Year’s Eve ‘Illuminati Ball’…
December 30, 2018
Attendees, who are shelling out $200 to $400 per ticket, are coming “from all over the world — Amsterdam, Germany, Australia,” said von Buhler, 54. “We have people flying in just for this.”
[...]
At the Dec. 31 bash, there will be a human “cake” — with a model’s face, hands and feet sticking out of a body-shaped dessert — and a swimming mermaid in a tank. Von Buhler plans to create her own version of the New Year’s Eve ball drop: acrobats descending from the bank’s famed stained-glass dome.PG&E Could Face Murder Charges If Found Responsible for Causing Deadly Wildfires in NorCal: Attorney General…
December 30, 2018
According to the brief, potential charges range from minor misdemeanors related to clearing vegetation around power lines up to "homicide offenses like implied-malice murder and involuntary manslaughter."
[...]
In the blaze's aftermath, PG&E reported "an outage" on a transmission line in the area where the blaze began, about 15 minutes before it started. The company also reported finding power equipment and a downed power pole riddled with bullet holes and a downed line with tree branches on it.Trump personally intervened to pay Coast Guard in shutdown…
December 30, 2018
Concerned about U.S. Coast Guard forces losing a paycheck in the partial government shutdown, President Trump personally urged his team to find a solution that would allow the administration to make this week’s $75 million payroll, according to officials.
Cyberattack from outside the U.S. hits newspapers across the country, preventing distribution…
Q & A from LA Times...
December 29, 2018
A cyberattack that appears to have originated from outside the United States caused major printing and delivery disruptions at several newspapers across the country on Saturday including the Los Angeles Times, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
The attack led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of The Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and several other major newspapers that operate on a shared production platform. It also stymied distribution of the West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, which are all printed at the Los Angeles Times’ Olympic printing plant in downtown Los Angeles.
“We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically servers, as opposed to looking to steal information,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
Stop adding cancer-causing chemicals to our bacon, experts tell meat industry…
December 29, 2018
The reputation of the meat industry will sink to that of big tobacco unless it removes cancer-causing chemicals from processed products such as bacon and ham, a coalition of experts and politicians warn today.
Florida Ban on Military-Style Firearms and Disqualifications for Firearm Possession Initiative (2020)…
December 29, 2018
The Florida Ban on Military-Style Firearms and Disqualifications for Firearm Possession Initiative (Initiative #18-03) may appear on the ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020.[1]
The measure would ban persons residing or entering the state from possessing military-style firearms. The measure would define military-style firearms as "any gun with a magazine capacity of more than seven rounds of ammunition or any weapon capable of firing in fully automatic mode, any weapon capable of being modified in any manner to fire in a fully automatic mode or any weapon classified as a sniper rifle."[1]
The measure would also prohibit persons from possessing any firearm if the person had (a) been convicted of a felony; (b) been convicted of three or more misdemeanors; (c) his or her driver's license revoked for driving under the influence, reckless driving, or excessive speeding; (d) been subject to two or more domestic abuse emergency calls or investigations; (e) been diagnosed by a medical professional as psychologically disturbed; or (f) made any substantiated threat of violence against another person.[1]
The measure would delete the existing language of Section 8(a) of Article I of the Florida Constitution, which provides people with the constitutional right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves.[1]
This is bad. Are Floridian's going to stand up to this or what?
Donald Trump is completely transforming the Democrats…
December 29, 2018
A party requires more than an all-consuming hatred for an individual. A party has to stand for something that transcends the immediate or the visceral. Yet, in the age of Trump, the public is not interested in nuance or niceties. The watchword is “resist” and that means resist at all costs — even to core values. In other words, the question is not what the Democratic Party will do but what it will be, after Donald Trump eventually leaves office.
How to Watch New Horizons’ Ultima Thule Flyby on New Year’s Day…
December 29, 2018
At 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) on Jan. 1, New Horizons will zoom past the small object Ultima Thule, which lies 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto in the realm of icy bodies known as the Kuiper Belt.
The mission team will keep the public appraised of New Horizons' progress via a series of news conferences and updates over the coming days, all of which you can watch directly via the space agency, or via the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, which manages the New Horizons mission for NASA. You'll also be able watch the events here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV and JHUAPL.
Pennsylvania Court rules mothers’ drug use in pregnancy isn’t child abuse…
December 29, 2018
Pennsylvania's highest court says mothers who use illegal drugs while pregnant can't be considered perpetrators of child abuse against their newly born children under the state's child protection law.
The court's main opinion issued Friday says the law's definition of a child doesn't include fetuses or unborn children, and it says victims of perpetrators must be children.