Mike Pompeo returns to Middle East to urge action against Iran with 3 different partners…
March 19, 2019
In Israel, Pompeo will embrace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally in the Trump administration's campaign to push back on Iranian influence. In Kuwait, he will press the Amir and other leaders for unity among Gulf Arab countries against Iran. And in Lebanon, he will urge leaders, including those with close ties to Hezbollah, to "disconnect" from the group and its supporter Iran -- a tall order as the group now controls cabinet posts in the country's government.
Citizenship Question On 2020 Census Would Cost Some States Their Congressional Seats…
March 19, 2019
The census is conducted every 10 years to count the U.S. population. The U.S. Census Bureau then uses these population numbers to determine how the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are distributed. The number of seats that a state receives also determines the size of its delegation to the Electoral College.
In addition, a state’s total population dictates the amount of federal dollars that it receives. In 2015 alone, the federal government used census data to distribute more than US$675 billion to the states. So, it’s to a state’s economic advantage to have all its residents counted in the decennial census.
Forensic genealogists are using DNA databases to solve cold cases faster than anyone could have imagined…
March 19, 2019
In June 2015, Fort Wayne police learned that Parabon NanoLabs, a biotech company headquartered in Reston, Virginia, was offering a service called Snapshot, in which a working sketch of a criminal suspect could be generated directly from minuscule amounts of DNA... Snapshot uses a process known as DNA phenotyping to determine several distinct physical traits—eye color, hair color, nose shape—to produce computer-generated sketches of a suspect... Parabon had expanded Snapshot to incorporate a promising new technique: forensic genealogy. Now, the same DNA sample used to produce the composite sketch... could be uploaded to an open-source genealogy database called GEDmatch—founded in 2010 as a free service to help people look for and identify prospective relatives. The hope was that after comparing the uploaded sample to the more than one million users who had uploaded their DNA to GEDmatch, the database would spit out a list of potential relatives of the suspect.
Watch CNN’s Town Hall with Pocahontas…
March 19, 2019
National Enquirer paid brother of Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend $200,000 for text messages…
March 19, 2019
Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos’ girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, reportedly provided the intimate communications to American Media LLC, this after months of speculation as to how the tabloid obtained messages revealing lurid details about the Amazon CEO’s alleged love affair.
The Journal's finding, attributed to people familiar with the matter, parallels the conclusion reached by private investigators working for Bezos as of early February. Those investigators reportedly found that Michael Sanchez had leaked the texts to the Enquirer, although they didn't appear to conclude who might have paid for them.
CUCKED OUT: New Zealanders start voluntarily handing in semi-automatic weapons…
March 19, 2019
John Hart, who has been a sheep and beef farmer for 15 years, said he took his semi-automatic weapon into Masterton police station on Monday as he "couldn't in all conscience" keep the rifle after seeing the loss of life in Christchurch.
"Until today I was one of the New Zealanders who owned a semi-automatic rifle. On the farm they are a useful tool in some circumstances, but my convenience doesn't outweigh the risk of misuse," he posted online.
[...]
Hart said he used his rifle occasionally for pest control but semi-automatic guns were not really needed on his farm. "Since the events on Friday I had been thinking a lot about the firearms we have here on the farm... They [semi-automatic weapons] are not critical, not if the trade off is loss of life," he said.This farmer said: "my convenience doesn't outweigh the risk of misuse". Why would you misuse it? Do you not trust yourself? Who is this person? This doesn't sound like any intelligent and stable person would say. A gun is not critical if the trade-off is loss of life? Well it wouldn't be a trade-off if you didn't kill anyone yourself. It seems we're witnessing some major propaganda coming out of New Zealand seeping into American politics and it's ugly.
Trudeau’s Top Bureaucrat Unexpecteldy Quits as scandal’s toll on Trudeau…
March 19, 2019
The head of Canada’s federal bureaucracy said on Monday he was quitting over his role in handling a corporate corruption case, dealing another blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he battles the biggest political crisis of his tenure.
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Polls suggest that Trudeau’s Liberals - who a few months ago looked certain to be re-elected in October - are now at risk of losing power to the official opposition Conservatives.China Is Spending Billions To Dethrone The U.S. In Race For The World’s Fastest Supercomputer…
March 19, 2019
China is currently in the midst of a multi-billion dollar investment cycle to upgrade its supercomputer infrastructure in a bid to pass the United States for fastest supercomputer in the world after the United States regained the title for fastest supercomputer in 2018, ending a five-year reign of Chinese dominance.
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As a result, as part of the computer arms race, China is aiming for its newest supercomputers to operate about 50% quicker than the best machines in the United States. Should these aims come to fruition, China would once again take the title of having the world's fastest machine back from the United States.Facebook Temporarily Blocks White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino…
March 19, 2019
Scavino posted a screenshot of the ban with the caption, “Dear Facebook—
AMAZING. WHY ARE YOU STOPPING ME from replying to comments followers have left me – on my own Facebook Page!!?? People have the right to know. Why are you silencing me??? Please LMK! Thanks.”
Ocasio-Cortez Is Top ‘Villain’ in Amazon Pullout, Poll Finds…
March 19, 2019
Another prosecutor leaving Mueller’s team…
March 19, 2019
A top Robert Mueller prosecutor who handled Michael Flynn’s guilty plea has left the special counsel’s office amid growing signs that the Russia investigation is nearing its end.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Zainab Ahmad “has concluded her detail” under Mueller “but will continue to represent the office on specific pending matters that were assigned to her during her detail,” said Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel.
Trump names conservative lawyer as Mexico ambassador…
March 19, 2019
President Donald Trump will nominate a Washington attorney, Christopher Landau, to be the next United States Ambassador to Mexico, the White House Press Office said on Monday.
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Landau, now a partner at the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, and then for Justice Clarence Thomas, both considered court conservatives.Sprint customers say a glitch exposed other people’s account information…
March 19, 2019
One reader emailed TechCrunch with several screenshots describing the issue, warning that they could see other Sprint customers’ names and phone numbers. The reader said they informed the phone giant of the issue, and a Sprint representative said they had “several calls pertaining to the same issue.”
In all, the reader saw 22 numbers in a two-hour period, they said.
Several other customers complained of the same data exposing bug. It’s unclear how widespread the issue is or for how long the account information leak persisted.
SCOTUS To Decide If States Can Prosecute Illegal Immigrants For Identity Theft…
March 19, 2019
The case involves three foreign nationals — Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara — who entered the country illegally. The trio used stolen Social Security numbers when applying for work in the service industry. All three were convicted of identity theft in Kansas courts.
The justices will hear the case during the Supreme Court’s next term, which begins in October.
Patients can now legally smoke medical marijuana in Florida…
March 19, 2019
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday that now makes smokable medical marijuana legal in the Sunshine State, which had been a priority for the Republican governor since taking office in January. However, qualified patients may have to wait a bit before they are prescribed a smokable form of pot.
The state previously had a ban on smoking medical marijuana that was enacted in 2017 and signed by then-Gov. Rick Scott. The bill repeals that ban, which was passed by Florida state legislature Wednesday before it was sent to DeSantis, reports CBS affiliate WKMG-TV.
Dead Whale Washes Ashore with Shocking 88 lbs. of Plastic in Its Stomach — 78.2 lbs was from Asia and India…
March 19, 2019
They found its stomach was packed with plastic bags — 16 rice sacks, four banana-plantation-style bags and some shopping bags, according to a Facebook post from the museum.
His stomach "had the most plastic we have ever seen in a whale," they wrote in the post. "It's disgusting." And it wasn't just plastic bags: The museum said it plans to post a full list of all the plastic items found in the whale's stomach in the next few days.
Scientists can turn regular seawater into hydrogen fuel…
March 19, 2019
Stanford researchers have devised a way to generate hydrogen fuel using solar power, electrodes and saltwater from San Francisco Bay.
The findings, published March 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate a new way of separating hydrogen and oxygen gas from seawater via electricity. Existing water-splitting methods rely on highly purified water, which is a precious resource and costly to produce.
Pentagon sends Congress list of projects that could be cut to pay for Trump’s border wall..
March 19, 2019
Acting Pentagon Chief Patrick Shanahan sent the list to Congress on Monday, a day after a tense congressional hearing in which Democratic senators demanded a list from the military about which projects could be impacted.
The list includes several hundred construction projects across dozens of U.S. states as well as U.S. bases across the world. Defense department officials say not all the projects on the list would be cut, as the combined cost of all the listed construction is around $12.9 billion, far more than the $3.6 billion that Trump has sought to take from the military budget.