June 25th, 2019

Gold Prices rose to new 6-year highs Monday in London after US gold ETF the GLD showed its fastest 1-day growth in over 10 years... Gold prices added another 0.8% to touch $1410 per ounce in both Asian and then London trade Monday...

The company is launching six new media literacy activities for the curriculum that will help teach kids things like how to avoid a phishing attack, what bots are, how to verify that information is credible, how to evaluate sources, how to identify disinformation online, spot fake URLs, and more.

The new media literacy classes — which frankly, some adults should read through as well — were developed in collaboration with Anne Collier, executive director of The Net Safety Collaborative, and Faith Rogow, Ph.D., co-author of The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy and a co-founder of the National Association for Media Literacy Education...

Google is coming for your kids.

Researchers at Boston-based Cybereason, who discovered the operation and shared their findings with TechCrunch, said the hackers could track the physical location of any customer of the hacked telcos — including spies and politicians — using the call records.

Lior Div, Cybereason’s co-founder and chief executive, told TechCrunch it’s “massive-scale” espionage.

Call detail records — or CDRs — are the crown jewels of any intelligence agency’s collection efforts....

With titles that range from: ‘control is the slow, powerful cousin of creativity’, to the mildly threatening: ‘robot takeover is only likely to get worse’, Montag.xyz gives a glimpse into the complex mind of AI as it learns and gathers information off the internet...

Economic health is measured here using average growth in gross domestic product over two years leading up to the quarter before the election. We don’t have those numbers yet for Trump, of course, so Goldman uses its forecast of 2.2% GDP growth. By that metric, he’ll preside over an economy as healthy as that of Bill Clinton in 1996 or George W. Bush in 2004. It likely doesn’t hurt that the S&P 500 index has returned 36.4% since Trump’s inauguration, or 13.7% annualized.

Plotting popularity and GDP for incumbent elections going back to Lyndon Johnson in 1964 yields a scatterplot showing how well an incumbent has to do on one measure to make up for weakness on the other. Long story short, Trump is doing well enough on the economy to make up for his low approval rating—and win. See the chart [above].

They don’t claim the technology will solve climate change, but they say it will help.

Who said 'Climate Change' isn't profitable?

“After ignoring the Administration’s request for desperately needed funding to address the humanitarian crisis at the border for over a month, and despite the efforts of the House minority, the House majority has put forward a partisan bill that underfunds necessary accounts and seeks to take advantage of the current crisis by inserting policy provisions that would make our country less safe,” the statement reads... Some of the provisions added by Democrats include measures that withhold funding from detention centers at the border. The push to pass the bill comes as reports of child deaths after being detained at the border continue to grow...

Three large Chinese banks could lose their access to the U.S. financial system after a judge found them in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas in a probe into violation of North Korean sanctions, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The three banks are not identified by the judge, but details in the court ruling align with a 2017 civil forfeiture action against the Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, according to the report...

The administration said in a Monday letter to Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) that Conway would not testify, citing "long-standing precedent." The White House decided on the move ahead of a Wednesday vote from the panel to subpoena Conway if she does not appear voluntarily... In an interview earlier Monday, Conway simultaneously insisted she had not violated the law, that the law did not apply to assistants to the president and that Democrats were attempting to silence her. She did not say in the interview whether she planned to testify.

Cooper asked Carroll, "you don't feel like a victim?" after she suggested that was the case, and things went downhill fast.

The seemingly unstable Carroll replied, "I was not flung to the floor."

Cooper retorted, "I think most people think of rape as a violent assault..."

To which Carrol replied, stunning the CNN anchor, "I think most people think of rape as being sexy..."

Cooper stuttered, stumbled, and quickly cut the interview straight to a commercial break, but not before Carroll could add "...think of the fantasies."

Defense Minister Nurlan Ermekbaev said a fire erupted in the warehouse in the Turkistan region early in the morning of June 24 causing explosions. The cause of the fire is unclear, he added. Authorities have announced a state of emergency in the whole region and ordered evacuation of all 45,000 residents of Arys.

German authorities believe a large Asian food market on the outskirts of Berlin is a way station for a human trafficking network bringing hundreds of people, including minors, from Vietnam to Western Europe. Investigators told the public broadcaster RBB24 that organized criminal networks use the Dong Xuan Center, a wholesale market where about 250 traders from across Asia do business, and other locations in Berlin to bring people into Germany via Russia, the Baltic states and Poland.

The X-59 is being developed by Lockheed Martin with a budget of $247 million... In place of a traditional window, the X-59 will be having a monitor and will use two cameras placed outside the aircraft combined with terrain data for the pilot to understand where they are heading. The whole system is named XVS (eXternal Visibility Systems). The cockpit of this aircraft looks like an arch of glass over the tiny wings of the plane and a small glass-covered portion in front of the cockpit will be the area for placement of cameras...

Scotts Valley High School will see a lot of law enforcement and first responders as they train for a active shooter and mass casualty incident. According to the Scotts Valley Police Department, law enforcement and fire personnel from the greater Bay Area region will work together for the training exercise. During the training, they will be using simulations, distractionary devices, and volunteer role players to give each scenario a realistic feel. The training will take place from Monday until Friday, June 28, during daytime hours.

...this is a huge step forward for automation in fast-food. It’s also an inevitable one, since the success of the QSR is predicated on making consistent food at a fast pace. I’m hard-pressed to find a task that robots are more suited for.

The WSJ pointed out that these innovations are part of McDonald’s efforts to quicken the chain’s pace of service to help it edge out fast-food competition. That’s certainly true, but there are numerous other benefits as well. Automating dangerous jobs like frying could lead to fewer employee injuries. In addition to being potentially life-threatening, these injuries can also have a high cost for the restaurant.

As far as the drive-thru goes, adding voice recognition technology can help McDonald’s streamline the drive-thru experience, cutting down on ever-lengthening wait times...

Fewer employee injuries? Or fewer employees? It's almost as if McDonald's payed for this report.

Two years of dreaming, thinking, working hard and anticipating have built to this moment. A new era of driving on the power of the sun will be within reach. The new dawn arrives with first light on June 25. Our car will charge itself using the power of the sun.

A Treasury spokesperson said that the process for issuing new notes was not political and that security and potential counterfeiting threats were the only considerations when it came to the currency redesign schedule. The $20 bill currently features President Andrew Jackson, one of President Donald Trump's favorite historical figures. Trump, who once described the move to put Tubman's likeness on the $20 note as "pure political correctness," has suggested that the famed abolitionist could be featured on the $2 bill instead.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said on Twitter that only 30 of 255 children remain at the Clint border patrol station in El Paso County following her office sending a letter on Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost... The announcement comes after lawyers with Human Rights Watch said children had lived in the Clint short-term facility for up to four weeks, well above the 72 hours maximum limit set by U.S. law.

US parcel delivery firm FedEx Corp on Monday sued the US government, saying it should not be held liable if it inadvertently shipped products that violated a Trump administration ban on exports to some Chinese companies.

The move came after FedEx reignited Chinese ire over its business practices when a package containing a Huawei phone sent to the US was returned last week to its sender in Britain, in what FedEx said was an “operational error.” Fears that China would blacklist FedEx as a result sent its shares down 2.7 per cent on Monday.