December, 2018

Autopsy reports confirmed that Elywn Crocker, Jr., who would be 16-year-old by now, had been buried for at least two years, while Mary had been buried for months.

Police arrested the children’s father, as well as their step-mother and step-grandmother and her boyfriend. All four have been charged with concealing a death and cruelty to children.

Already, gun control advocates have become very dispirited.

Senator Dianne Feinstein lamented that the lawsuit by Gun Owners of America would keep the bump stock ban “tied up in court for years.”

A federal rule requires all hospitals to post online a master list of prices for the services they provide so consumers can review them starting Jan. 1.

The health care industry nationally has a reputation for having little price transparency, which can make it difficult for consumers to price compare. But the hospital’s master list prices, sometimes called a chargemaster, is also not a complete look, consumer advocates say.

With European elections scheduled for next May, momentum is growing for the so-called Yellow Vests protest movement here to transform itself into a political party, a step that could shake up the French political scene.

The national secretary of the French Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, is calling on supporters of the protest movement to join his electoral list for the May elections.

Alternatively, he told the daily newspaper Libération, they could also set up an independent list which his party, and probably others, would support.

Yellow-Vest protestors in France must encompass a variety of political ideologues within their movement to have the Communist party call for their support.

The now-dead deal, first agreed to in 2014, is the latest example to come to light of the US government's ongoing distrust of the Chinese tech maker. The company's products were banned within government agencies earlier this year.

Under the terms of agreement, Huawei would have provided free internet to all of the high-priced indoor suites in Washington's stadium. In exchange, the team would put up advertisements for the Chinese tech giant around FedEx Field -- no money would have changed hands in the deal.

When he was ramping up production of the Model 3 Tesla, he put in as many as 120 hours in a week. He slept at the factory because he had no time to go home. He called 2018 "the most difficult and painful year of my career." "It was excruciating," he told The New York Times.

In late October Musk finally said he was working a much more manageable schedule of 80 to 90 hours a week.
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So why does Musk push himself? To hear Musk tell it, he is trying to save planet Earth. Literally. Musk wants Tesla to be successful so the world moves away from driving cars that run on petroleum-derived fuel.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of debates and legal fights concerning questions around Title IX and due process. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is supposed to protect people in educational settings from sex discrimination. It has been interpreted in some questionable ways, lately, with regards to the due process of anyone accused. But, now it's also impacting some other areas as well. The folks at FIRE highlight a fairly horrific appeals court ruling in the 4th Circuit, overturning a lower court ruling (that had dismissed the case), saying that a university might be required to ban access to certain websites under Title IX.

These neural networks have, it seems, competed their way to generating images of fabricated human faces that genuine humans have trouble distinguishing from images of the real deal... What they've come up with, in other words, has made it not just more possible than ever to create fake faces, but made those faces more customizable than ever as well.

The Verge Raises Valid, yet troubling points...

Of course, the ability to create realistic AI faces raises troubling questions. Experts have been raising the alarm for the past couple of years about how AI fakery might impact society. These tools could be used for misinformation and propaganda and might erode public trust in pictorial evidence, a trend that could damage the justice system as well as politics.

Air Force One has been spotted flying over Yorkshire, England early Wednesday in what appears to be a flight headed towards Turkey, according to WikiLeaks and flight trackers - which later noted that the plane has disappeared.

A Boeing 747 with call sign RCH58 left Joint Base Andrews at approximately midnight Eastern time, and was seen over Hungary at approximately 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.

UPDATE:
Trump, First Lady Visit U.S. Troops in Iraq

More than 3,000 patients of an outpatient New Jersey hospital have been warned that they may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.

The patients received care at HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook between January and Sept. 7, the New Jersey Department of Health said in a statement.

The alert follows unspecified infection control breaches. All of the patients who were potentially exposed to infections have been notified, the department added.

The law enforcement challenges caused by cross-border crime are relentless and ever-changing in Yuma County, but the sheriff is clear on the formula for border security:. “You have to have a tactical infrastructure, you have to have the boots on the ground, you have to have the electronic surveillance, and you have to have the prosecution side,” he said.

“What’s happening on the border ain’t coming across and staying here—it’s going throughout the United States.”

The State Police report obtained by Mass Live allegedly includes a Snapchat video showing Spacey, 59, groping the front of the teenage victim’s pants during the alleged July 2016 assault at the Club Car restaurant.

According to Mass Live, the 18-year-old victim told police he sent a video to his girlfriend over Snapchat to prove that his version of events occurred. The teen’s girlfriend also spoke to police and confirmed the existence of the clip, the report said.

Late next month, the public will get to witness the Super Blood Wolf Moon, a total lunar eclipse that will take place on January 20. The celestial event will come nearly a year after the 2018 Super Blue Moon total lunar eclipse, this one featuring a red tinge caused by the moon passing through the Earth’s shadow. Want to see it for yourself? You’ll need to be in North America.

The event will take place on the night of January 20 leading into January 21, depending on the viewer’s time zone and which part of the eclipse they’re seeing. The event will start at 9:36PM and the total eclipse will start at 11:41PM in the Eastern time zone, ultimately ending a little before 3AM ET.

Germany led the world for the number of government device requests (13,704), followed by the US (4,570), Australia, Spain (2,276) and Singapore (1,689).

Australia made more requests than China (751), the UK (572), Japan (446), New Zealand (315) and Canada (15).

The highest compliance rate – for a country with more than one request – was in China, where Apple agreed to 94% of the government’s requests, granting access on 705 occasions. The total number of requests in China covered 30,764 devices.

"Our business is sustainable fashion. The traditional way of buying, wearing, washing and throwing away overpriced underwear is a terrible waste of resources. And it is extremely harmful to the environment," says 27-year-old Mads Fibiger, CEO and co-founder of Organic Basics.

Washing and drying account for two-thirds of the total impact on the environment, and that is why Organic Basics got started on their underwear. The special ingredient is silver. This particular metal is antimicrobial which is why NASA uses silver to purify water for astronauts.

It is said that nanosilver is pretty bad for the environment due to extraction and refinement. Let's hope those methods change as Silver seems to be a popular element in more than just supplements, but now wearables.

The battle comes amid Disney's efforts to ramp up its own online video offerings, which can be sold directly to the consumer without going through a cable TV system.
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Disney is warning customers of Verizon's Fios that they may lose access to Disney channels — including ESPN, local ABC stations and other channels...

• According to the results of a study published in Nature, gaming could possibly increase the volume of gray matter in the brain.
• Researchers recently studied the insular cortex regions of frequent gamers and those who didn't play video games as regularly.
• The study found a correlation between playing action video games and increased gray matter volume in the brain.

Stocks posted their best day in nearly a decade on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching its largest one-day point gain in history. Rallies in retail and energy shares led the gains, as Wall Street recovered the steep losses suffered in the previous session.
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Wednesday also marked the biggest post-Christmas rally for U.S. stocks ever.

Local organizers have canceled plans for a 2019 Chicago Women’s March as scrutiny grows over the national group’s ties to anti-Semitic comments by the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

The annual January march in Chicago, which drew thousands of people to Grant Park the last two years, was nixed by organizers who cited high costs and limited volunteers.

But the announcement came after the Chicago chapter condemned and distanced itself the national Women’s March leadership for its ties to anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ statements from Minister Louis Farrakhan of the National of Islam.

Indonesian authorities urged people to avoid the coast in areas where a tsunami killed at least 430 people over the weekend in a fresh warning issued on the anniversary of the catastrophic 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami.
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Indonesia's Meteorology, Geophysics and Climatology Agency asked people late Tuesday to stay at least 1,640 feet and up to less than a mile from the coastline along the strait, which lies between the two main islands. Government workers were monitoring Anak Krakatoa's eruptions and high waves and heavy rain were possible Wednesday, said agency head Dwikorita Karnawati.

"All these conditions could potentially cause landslides at the cliffs of the crater into the sea, and we fear that that could trigger a tsunami," she said at a news conference. She asked that communities remain vigilant but not panic.