How China Uses LinkedIn to Recruit Spies Abroad…
August 27, 2019
Foreign agents are exploiting social media to try to recruit assets, with LinkedIn as a prime hunting ground, Western counterintelligence officials say. Intelligence agencies in the United States, Britain, Germany and France have issued warnings about foreign agents approaching thousands of users on the site. Chinese spies are the most active, officials say.
“We’ve seen China’s intelligence services doing this on a mass scale,” said William R. Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a government agency that tracks foreign spying and alerts companies to possible infiltration. “Instead of dispatching spies to the U.S. to recruit a single target, it’s more efficient to sit behind a computer in China and send out friend requests to thousands of targets using fake profiles.”
Pentagon chief approves 20 more miles of border wall…
August 27, 2019
Esper approved the Department of Homeland Security request Monday for the additional construction after contracts for the previously approved barriers cost less than expected, according to the documents... After awarding contracts for seven projects, the Army Corps of Engineers determined that lower-than-expected contract costs could allow for another 20 miles of barrier, Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense and global security, wrote in a declaration to the court.
OxyContin maker, government attorneys in settlement talks
August 27, 2019
State attorneys general and lawyers representing local governments said Tuesday they are in active settlement talks with Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin that is facing billions of dollars in potential liability for its role in the nation's opioid crisis. Purdue has been cast by attorneys and addiction experts as a main villain in the crisis for producing a blockbuster drug while understating its addiction risk. A report by NBC News said the privately held company has offered to settle for $10 billion to $12 billion.
Are Foreign “NGO’s” to blame for the Amazon fires?…
Anon reminds us about the time How Ecuador sold itself to China...
August 27, 2019
UPDATE: Amazon fire arsonists are being caught.
One group of Dutch or German NGO caught red handed and admitted they were paid.
Sonia @SoniavonHomrich please let us know what news you get from local honest media sources. https://t.co/mJpqsZC1In— Dr. Waheed Uddin (@drwaheeduddin) August 27, 2019
I found out from a Brazilian engineer that China has been building roads in Ecuador & Bolivia through Amazon rainforest.
Obviously, the plan is to connect this region of less exploited natural resources to the Pacific coast for easy & faster shipping of raw minerals to Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/3lJUiPdw1I— Dr. Waheed Uddin (@drwaheeduddin) August 27, 2019
Medieval Coin Hoard Unearthed in Scotland…
August 27, 2019
... amateur historian and metal detectorist Jarosław Musialkowski discovered a cache of 200 silver coins at a possible medieval military camp in Scotland’s east-central Lowlands. The site is associated with the First War of Scottish Independence and the Battle of Roslin, in which 8,000 Scottish troops, led by John Comyn, killed more than 20,000 invading English soldiers under the command of John Segrave in A.D. 1303. Many of the coins bear an image of the English king Edward I, who ruled from 1272 to 1307, while others are thought to have been minted in Ireland.
Fake News Can Create False Memories, especially if those stories align with their political beliefs, according to new research…
August 27, 2019
According to the study’s findings, nearly half of the participants reported a memory for at least one of the made-up events. Many recalled rich details about a fabricated news story...Participants who scored lower on the cognitive test were no more prone to forming false memories than those with higher scores, the researchers said. Low scorers were more likely to remember false stories that aligned with their opinions, they added... Many participants failed to reconsider their memory even after learning that some of the information could be fictitious. And several participants recounted details that the false news reports did not include, the researchers said... “People will act on their fake memories, and it is often hard to convince them that fake news is fake,” said Loftus, who participated in the research....
Dobbs & Fitton discuss whether former FBI official Andrew McCabe will be indicted…
August 27, 2019
Navy quietly ends climate change task force, reversing Obama initiative…
August 27, 2019
The closure was quiet and occurred in March, according to Greenwire, and "the group's tab on the Navy's energy, environment and climate change website was removed sometime between March and July." The purpose of the TFCC was to evaluate how climate change affects or could affect Naval and national security operations.
Federal judge blocks Missouri’s 8-week abortion ban…
August 27, 2019
U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs put a pause on the law as a legal challenge against it plays out in court. Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed the lawsuit, arguing that the law is unconstitutional and goes against the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The law includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest. If courts don't uphold the eight-week ban, the measure includes a series of less-restrictive bans ranging from 14 weeks up to 20 weeks. The policy also bans abortions based solely on race, sex or a diagnosis indicating the potential for Down syndrome.
Rollercoaster US foreign aid spending in four charts…
August 27, 2019
Here's two of the charts:
‘Suspicious’ deaths at West Virginia VA hospital under investigation…
August 27, 2019
A government watchdog group is investigating a "person of interest" in the cases of at least 10 patients -- all of whom died suddenly and in similar fashion -- at a Veterans Affairs hospital in West Virginia. As of now, at least one of those deaths has been dubbed a homicide... The deaths under investigation all appear linked by lethal doses of insulin, given to patients not being treated for diabetes or high blood sugar... “I was also assured by both Secretary Wilkie and Dr. Snider that the person of interest is no longer in any contact with veterans at the VA facility"...
College Board abandoning SAT ‘adversity score’ after criticism…
August 27, 2019
The company that administers the SAT college admissions test is replacing the so-called adversity score with a tool that will no longer reduce an applicant’s background to a single number, an idea that the College Board’s chief executive now says was a mistake. Amid growing scrutiny of the role wealth plays in college admissions, the College Board introduced its Environmental Context Dashboard about two years ago to provide context for a student’s performance on the test and help schools identify those who have done more with less. The version used by about 50 institutions in a pilot program involved a formula that combined school and neighborhood factors like advanced course offerings and the crime rate to produce a single number. But critics called it an overreach for the College Board to score adversity the way it does academics.
Oregon quits federal family planning program over new abortion restrictions…
August 27, 2019
In a letter sent Monday to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Oregon Health Authority said it would withdraw from the Title X family planning grant program rather than follow new rules banning grantees from referring women for abortions. The state has been a Title X grantee since 1970. Last year, Title X-funded clinics served more than 44,000 people in Oregon, state officials said in a statement. Oregon is the latest state to leave the program, after Washington and Vermont decided to give up Title X funds last week.
De Bozo Panel Wants To Eliminate ‘Racist’ Gifted Programs In New York Schools…
August 27, 2019
A panel appointed by NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio to combat desegregation has recommended getting rid of public school programs for gifted and talented kids, as they are filled "mostly with white & Asian children"... Last year there were approximately 16,000 students enrolled in gifted classes - 75% of which were White and Asian, while Black and Hispanic enrollment in the same programs has fallen off a cliff over the past decade... Also recommended is that the city eliminate the standardized admissions exam for elementary school gifted programs - currently offered to prospective Kindergarten students in order to identify those with exceptional talents...
Ilhan Omar stole my husband, DC mom claims in divorce papers…
August 27, 2019
Dr. Beth Jordan Mynett says her cheating spouse, Tim Mynett, told her in April that he was having an affair with the Somali-born US representative and that he even made a “shocking declaration of love” for the Minnesota congresswoman before he ditched his wife, alleges the filing, submitted in DC Superior Court on Tuesday. The physician, 55, and her 38-year-old husband — who has worked for left-wing Democrats such as Omar and her Minnesota predecessor, Keith Ellison — have a 13-year-old son together.
Russia denies visa to another US lawmaker ahead of congressional trip…
August 27, 2019
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Tuesday that the Russian government denied him a visa — a day after Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., announced that Russia had denied him a visa request.
Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets, selling them to Uber…
August 27, 2019
U.S. General: SpaceX has changed our ability to sense threats…
August 27, 2019
“Holy smokes. Talk about being able to move the ball,” Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy said of the May 23 launch by Space X of 60 small satellites at one time. “The space sensing layer is absolutely key,” O’Shaughnessy said of the challenge of defending the country and its forces against new weapons such as “hypersonic” missiles. “I don’t know how you can do it without the space sensing layer… taking advantage of what (low-Earth orbit) gives you.”
SpaceX says “Star Link” was the first step in “a next-generation satellite network capable of connecting the globe, especially reaching those who are not yet connected,
Track the Status of Trump’s Border Wall…
August 27, 2019
Harvard Freshman Deported After Immigration Agents Search Social Media and Find Friends Who oppose the US…
August 27, 2019
The decision to reject Ismail Ajjawi's entrance into the U.S. was first reported by the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, which received a statement from Ajjawi, a 17-year-old Palestinian resident of Lebanon. The teen said a U.S. official asked him about his religious practices and searched his laptop and cellphone for five hours before questioning him about his friends' social media activity. "After the 5 hours ended, she called me into a room, and she started screaming at me. She said that she found people posting political points of view that oppose the US on my friend[s] list"... "I responded that I have no business with such posts and that I didn't like, [s]hare or comment on them and told her that I shouldn't be held responsible for what others post," Ajjawi wrote, according to the Crimson. Eight hours after Ajjawi arrived at the airport, just a few miles from the campus where he expected to attend college, he was sent back to Lebanon.