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Three Chechen Girls Investigated For Scamming ISIS Online Recruiters

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Three Chechen Girls Investigated For Scamming ISIS Online Recruiters

Three Chechen women are currently under investigation for fraud after allegedly scamming ISIS members into giving them money. The women acted as “catfishers,” scammers who use fake Internet profiles to convince innocent people into relationships, generally for the purpose of stealing money. One of the Chechen women said it all began when an ISIS fighter in Syria contacted her on social media, requesting that she leave Chechnya and travel to Syria, where she would become a “jihadi bride.” The women said they would do it . . . for a price.

The women communicated and kept in touch with the ISIS member, even sending fake pictures, until the money they requested for travel was paid to them via a payment program very similar to PayPal. Once the money cleared, the women deleted their profiles, stopped all contact with the ISIS member and kept the money. They then repeated the scam and got away with about $3,300 before being discovered by the Chechen online crimes unit. Officer Valery Zolotaryov stated that, “[he] [didn’t] recall any precedent like this one in Chechnya, probably because nobody digs deep enough in that direction . . .Anyhow, [he] [doesn’t] advise anyone to communicate with dangerous criminals, especially for grabbing quick money.”

Although the penalty for fraud carries a maximum sentence of six years in jail, many polls indicate that these women are heroes and should not face charges “for ripping off terrorists.”

ISIS has targeted Chechnya as it is a largely Muslim Russian republic with a growing ISIS support base. Thousands of Chechens are currently fighting in Syria, and although they constitute a small percentage of ISIS fighters, analysts speculate that the Chechen-practiced guerrilla tactics have boosted the “caliphate” or Islamic government. The Chechen Muslims working with ISIS came to attention recently when ISIS commander, Abu Omar al-Shishani, known as “The Chechen,” put a bounty on the Chechen president’s head.

ISIS recently formed a Russian-speaking propaganda program called Furat Media, which translates recruitment videos and messages on various social media outlets in hopes of luring potential followers from Russia to Syria. In response, Chechnya has pushed back. During a counterterrorism training camp, Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, displayed his fury over the tactics of ISIS by stating that “there won’t even be a whiff” of ISIS in the region. He further stated that Chechnya will not allow any Chechens to return from Syria.

California Wildfires Continue To Rage Despite Favorable Weather

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California Wildfires Continue To Rage Despite Favorable Weather

Those fighting the massive and unprecedented wildfires throughout California finally got a little help from Mother Nature early this morning. Lower temperatures and increased humidity have somewhat assisted firefighters in corralling the wildfires of Northern California. According to Captain Don Camp of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, containment of the fire in the Lower Lake region north of San Francisco was 12% this morning after holding at 5% for days.

The Lower Lake fire, known as the Rocky Fire, the largest of the 21 fires currently burning in California, tripled in size over the weekend and measured 93 miles by this morning. The sheer size of the Rocky Fire has caused officials to order 12,000 people to evacuate their homes. They have also closed several roads. California state fire spokesman, Jason Shanley, stated that, “It’s jaw-dropping to see some of the things it is doing.” Currently, the fire has destroyed 24 homes and 26 outbuildings and is threatening 6,300 homes.

Many of the California fires started when lightning struck brush and trees during the lengthy drought. Steady lightning and low humidity have continued to fuel the fires. And, although the lower temperatures and increased humidity are currently helping the 9,300 firefighters battling the blazes, gusty winds are expected throughout the day, which could intensify the fires.

On Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency, prompting the National Guard to mobilize and assist in the disaster response. Brown stated that the recent, record-setting drought has “turned much of the state into a tinderbox.” According to the United States Forest Service, one firefighter has died in his efforts to combat the spreading fires. David Ruhl, a father of two from Rapid City, South Dakota, was killed while fighting the Frog Fire in Northern California’s Modoc National Forest.

In addition to the Rocky and Frog Fires, many other fires continue to wreak havoc with varying degrees of containment. The Willow Fire, northeast of North Fork in the Sierra National Forest, was 60% contained as of Sunday night. The Cabin Fire, which burned over 2,600 acres since the middle of July, remains relatively stable and calm, but is only 2% contained. No structures have yet to be destroyed in the Willow or Cabin Fires, but six people have been injured in the Willow Fire.

This morning, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag warning for Modoc County. Officials request that people exercise extreme caution during Red Flag warnings “because a simple spark can cause a major wildfire.”

Chinese Land Grabs Expected To Dominate This Week’s ASEAN Trade Summit

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China faces increased pressure this week over their island-building campaign in the South China Sea as the 10 member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will host three days of talks starting on Tuesday. While it will discuss a variety of issues concerning its members, China’s expansion activities are expected to take center stage.

Building artificial islands atop once shallow reefs, China has added military outposts to the contentious waters, raising concern with the U.S. as well as its neighbors.

Although many ASEAN members have historically claimed the area in dispute, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei, China has made claim to the entire region. China’s response to criticism is an assertion of “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the region.

The U.S. has worries over the impact to international trade through the contested waterways, but Malaysia claims there has been some progress made towards a “Code of Conduct” (COC), which will help to dictate behavior during disputes at sea.

The Philippines contradicted this saying that China has been dragging its heels for years in order to delay the implementation of a COC deal. While bureaucratic meetings come to no effect, China continues to increase its presence in the area with more artificial islands.

Other issues to be covered during the meeting include human trafficking from Bangladesh and Myanmar. With Thailand and Malaysia also under scrutiny for their role in the practice, some southeast Asian countries blame Myamar for creating the incentive for trafficking through its persecution of the Rohingya minority.

China’s foreign minister Liu Zhenmin has already stated that China will object to any attempt to address the South China Sea issue. They made the counterclaim that the U.S. was in fact responsible for militarizing the area when it began sending patrols and conducting drills with allies such as the Philippines. China would of course prefer a quiet takeover of the region with no dispute, the coming week’s events will determine whether there is any hope for that outcome.

High Frequency Trading Firm Citadel Banned From Chinese Stock Exchanges

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High Frequency Trading Firm Citadel Banned From Chinese Stock Exchanges

Citadel Securities, a Chinese branch of high frequency hedge fund Citadel LLC, has had its account frozen by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) as officials investigate whether algorithmic, automated trading is causing China’s stock market to decline.

In the latest attempt to stabilize and “clean up” the country’s tumultuous stock market, it has banned Citadel Securities from trading on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, raising fresh questions about just how useful high frequency trading operations are for markets and retail investors.

The move to ban certain companies from trading on Chinese stock markets is just one element of the country’s unprecedented plan to shore up stock prices and grow investor confidence. China’s head authorities stepped in after the country suffered a $4 trillion plummet in the markets in July and August. The rout followed a 12-month period of stock growth which ended June 12th. The Chinese government took extraordinary efforts to halt the crash, including large-scale purchases of shares by state-owned banks and banning stock sales by major shareholders.

The latest ban on companies is directly related to the SCRC’s investigation into the practice known as “spoofing.” Spoofing occurs when a buyer purchases or sells stock, but then withdraws the order before the sale is completed. The investor then purchases or sells the stock at the new price to make a profit. This practice can mislead investors by creating a false impression that a certain stock is trading at a certain price. Some investors claim that is very common to withdraw buy/sell orders if market conditions change between the time an order is placed and when it is finalized. Despite these claims, the SCRC is having none of it.

In addition to researching spoofing practices, the SCRC is also aggressively investigating “malicious” short selling and other various forms of market manipulation, which authorities state are partly to blame for the market’s recent volatility.

Citadel has declined to specify details on its trading practices that led to its suspension, but it did confirm the ban and stated that it “continue[s] to otherwise operate normally from [their] offices, and [they] continue to comply with all local laws and regulations.”

China Restricts Exports Of Its World Leading Drones, Supercomputers

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In a clear sign of China’s industry-leading drone and supercomputer technology, the Communist country has issued new regulations restricting their export to other countries. The new regulations require that Chinese manufacturers of powerful drones and some advanced computers must obtain an export license prior to shipping to other countries. China’s Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs announced that the regulations will take effect August 15th.

Specifically, drones will require export licenses if they are capable for flying longer than 1 hour. Computers will require a license if they exceed eight teraflops, meaning they can process more than eight trillion calculations per second (about the the processing power of 33 Xbox 360s).

The tightening of drone and supercomputer regulations comes as China hopes to draw the world’s attention to its technological strengths. In the first five months of 2015 alone, China exported more than 160,000 civilian drones, an increase of 70% from the same period in 2014. Those exported drones accounted for more than $120 million in sales. China also hopes to maintain its competitive edge in the supercomputer battle which has long been dominated by the U.S.-Japan rivalry.

The issuance of export regulations also follow some recent international incidents involving drones. In the past few months, unmanned aircraft manufactured and sold by the Chinese company, DJI Technology Co., were flown on the grounds of the White House and onto the roof of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. More recently, political tensions erupted between India and Pakistan after Pakistan’s military tracked and shot down and Indian “spy drone” in the disputed region of Kashmir. The drone appeared to be Chinese made.

In response to China’s technological superiority in drone and supercomputer technology, President Obama issued an executive order for a new initiative entitled, “Creating a national strategic computing initiative.” The project is aimed at creating the world’s fastest supercomputer by 2025.

As of now, it appears that China’s new regulations will have little effect on the economy of China’s bustling consumer drone industry. Currently, few commercial drones can fly for more than an hour and therefore do not require export licenses. Michael Perry, spokesman for DJI, stated that his company’s drones presently have a maximum 25-minute flight time. The new restrictions likely will have a greater effect in the near future as drone technology improves and flight times increase.

NASA Unveils Museum Memorial To Challenger And Columbia Astronauts

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NASA Unveils Museum Memorial To Challenger And Columbia Astronauts

After being hidden for decades, the remnants of Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia are now on display in a new exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The exhibit marks the first time that any remains from either crash have ever been displayed. A piece of the Challenger’s fuselage is on display alongside the flight deck windows of the Columbia. NASA has also chosen to show items representing the astronauts from those flights, as both a tribute and a reminder of them.

June Scobee Rodgers, the wife of late Challenger commander Francis “Dick” Scobee said that although it is sad to see the wreckage, it is a “wonderful memorial” to the shuttles. As tribute to commander Scobee, a leather helmet used during his flights on a Starduster biplane with his wife June is shown. There are display cases for each astronaut, although not all families contributed to the exhibit. Columbia commander Rick Husband’s display case is across the hall from Scobee’s, inside are a pair of scuffed cowboy boots and a well-used Bible.

The design of the memorial was a collaboration between NASA and the families of the crew members lost on missions STS-51L and STS-107, and is titled “Forever Remembered.” Part of a permanent exhibit focused on the retired shuttle Atlantis, with the entrance to the memorial located just beneath the nose of the Atlantis, which is suspended inside the Kennedy Space Center.

As a result of the Challenger accident, improvements in the rocket booster design were made, which prevented any booster failures for the remaining 110 missions of the shuttle program. The successor to the shuttle program, the Orion, made its first test launch in December of last year, and faces neither of the dangers that caused the two shuttle accidents. This was partially in reaction to the Columbia accident, and the current stacked design of the Orion places the crew module on top of the rocket assembly rather than beside it.

British Drugmaker GSK Facing Fresh Bribery Allegations

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British Drugmaker GSK Facing Fresh Bribery Allegations

Fresh off paying a record $483 million fine in China, British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is facing corruption allegations yet again, this time in Romania. GSK announced they were investigating the latest claims of bribes which were detailed in a whistleblower’s email late last week.

The email alleges that Romanian doctors were paid up to thousands of euros from 2009 to 2012 for the prescription of prostate medicine Avodart and Duodart, in addition to the Parkinson’s disease medicine Requip. Doctors were also paid for speaking engagements that never occurred, or in some cases many payments received when only one speech was made.

Following a guilty plea in the U.S. case in 2012, the company paid a record $3 billion in fines in addition to pledging in 2013 that it would no longer pay doctors to promote its drugs or attend medical conferences, and that its sales staff would no longer have prescription targets. With the current list of alleged bribery incidences, it would seem they have not found a viable new business strategy outside of bribery.

GSK isn’t alone in its industry, with Pfizer having paid a $2.3 billion fine in 2009 for off-label marketing of its arthritis drug Bextra. Also a repeat offender, Pfizer at the time had settled with the U.S. Department of Justice three other times in the previous 10 years. With health care spending showing no signs of slowing, more bad behavior looks likely.

Poland, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq are all investigating the Glaxo for similar allegation in what appears to be a widely accepted corporate culture of win at all costs.

GSK refused to comment on the other ongoing investigations.

India Scores Another Win Against Companies Trying To Patent Natural Ingredients

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India has notched a significant win against intellectual property trolls after it succeed this year in retaining rights to its so-called “traditional knowledge,” after the UK-based firm Pangaea Laboratories Limited (PLL) attempted to patent a simple mixture of turmeric, pine bark, and green tea in the treatment of hair loss.

This is India’s second recent win against big corporations seeking to patent nature, after having defeated Colgate-Palmolive when they attempted to patent a traditional mouthwash recipe using herbal extracts.

The group fighting the trolls is the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), and their counsel was able to prove to the European Patent Office (EPO) that the turmeric, pine bark, and green tea has been used in Indian systems of medicine since ancient times.

The issue is sometimes referred to as “biopiracy” and is demonstrated by the presenting of indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants as an original discovery, without credit to the community from which that knowledge originated. PLL filed their application in February of 2011, and was challenged by the TKDL in January of 2014 following publication of the patent application on the EPO website. The TKDL has won over 200 such cases with citations from ancient texts as proof for their claims, and all without any expense to the public.

Founded in 2001, the TKDL has agreements with the EPO, United Kingdom Trademark & Patent Office, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which gives each of those organizations access to TKDL’s database of traditional knowledge. Because patent examiners now have access to the online records, there is no longer a need for prolonged and expensive legal cases, as the claims can be proved in an online search.

The TKDL was established in collaboration with India’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which itself tops the list of holders of U.S. patents. As an earlier example of its defense against biopiracy, the CSIR denied a U.S. patent application for the use of neem as an insecticide.

SuperPACs Have Already Spent A Stunning $400 Million On The 2016 Election

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Fewer than four hundred families account for nearly half of the money being raised for the 2016 presidential election according to analysis of recent campaign contributions. Most of that money is being directed towards organizations known as SuperPACS, which have no spending limits due to the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision in 2010. Nearly $400 million in funding has been raised for presidential candidates so far, which is quite high considering that in the 2012 election just over $600 million was spent by SuperPACs in total. With over one year left before the 2016 election, campaign funds from SuperPACs will likely break the previous record.

For those who don’t belong to the wealthiest one percent, it may be easy to malign the influence of such a small group of well-funded elites on the political system. With the demographics of wealth in the U.S. showing a level of disparity not seen since the height of the roaring ‘20s, the fact that Republican candidates are getting most of their money via these SuperPACs may turn out to hurt them.

Even more troubling than the concentration of donations is instances of corporate entities funding SuperPACs that have no publicly known owner.

One such example is a $1 million donation to a pro-Bush SuperPAC by the corporation Jasper Reserves, an LLC out of West Virginia, which does not require public owner records to be disclosed. On the opposing side, Hillary Clinton’s “Priorities USA” PAC received $15 million from just nine donors who each gave $1 million, yet their name do not appear anywhere.

Jeb Bush is currently winning the SuperPAC race, having raised over $100 million from thousands of donors, with over 20 having donated at least $1 million each.

If you suspected that these campaign funds also led to insider access to the potential candidates, you would be right.

Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign has received funds from companies that previously benefitted from Wisconsin’s economic development agency. In Gov. Chris Christie’s case, the single largest donor to his “America Leads” PAC originated from a Boston investor seeking to build a $4 billion casino in New Jersey.

With 2008 and 2012 the most expensive elections in history, the trend will likely continue for 2016 and beyond, barring a change to the Citizens United ruling.

Zimbabwe Enacts Hunting Ban In Wake Of Cecil The Lion’s Killing

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Shortly after the killing of one of Africa’s most beloved lions and the international public outrage that followed, Zimbabwe officials have created new hunting restrictions in areas surrounding wildlife game reserves. The lion, known as Cecil, was killed last week by an American dentist after his hunting guides lured the beautiful creature out of a national park using bait. She was shot by bow and arrow and took over 40 hours to die. Zimbabwe now seeks for the extradition of the American dentist, Walter Palmer, from the United States. The White House says it will review the request.

The new hunting restrictions are focused on areas near Zimbabwe’s largest game preserve. Edson Chidziya, head of Zimbabwe’s parks and wildlife authority stated that, “Hunting of lions, leopards and elephants in areas outside of Hwange National Park has been suspended with immediate effect.” Officials have also suspended hunting with bows and arrows, except with permission from the head of the agency. Chidziya commented that, “All such [bow and arrow] hunts will only be conducted if confirmed and authorised in writing by the director-general of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, and only if accompanied by parks staff.”

Chidziya stressed how serious the country was about curbing illegal hunting. The wildlife authority has joined forces with the police in a major crackdown “to weed out any undesirable elements . . .The Authority will not hesitate to arrest, prosecute and ban for life any persons including professional hunters, clients and landowners who are caught on the wrong side of the law.”

The outrage following Cecil’s death seems to be larger than life. Activists, conservationists and casual animal lovers everywhere have voiced their ire over social media, with some people calling for the dentist’s death. Others have inundated the dentist’s website with their scathing reviews, so much so that the site was taken offline. Palmer’s dental practice has been physically shut down for days, the front doors covered with signs of protest. Celebrities of all kinds have denounced Palmer’s actions and have called for greater protection of Africa’s wild animals. On his show, Jimmy Kimmel made a heartfelt plea to hunters everywhere to stop the act of killing defenseless animals.

There are those who believe hunting is important to Zimbabwe’s economy. Emmanuel Fundira, chairman of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, opined that his association could lose business as a result of the recent hunting ban, but added that such measures were necessary to protect Zimbabwe’s wildlife. He pointed out that “Hunting brings in no less than $40 million a year.”

One good thing has come from Cecil’s death, and that is the raising of people’s awareness about an important issue. Regardless of how one feels about hunting, the conversation and debate has been brought to the forefront.

Munich Planning A Highway Built Solely For Bicyclists

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Munich, Germany, is planning to beat its traffic problem through building a super highway system for cyclists that will connect employment centers, malls, universities and ultimately other cities.

City authorities have proposed building a network of 14 two-way bicycle paths for the city’s avid cyclists. The ambitious bicycle track would spread out to over 400 square miles and would not feature any crossroads, traffic lights or oncoming traffic.

Negotiating through Munich with a bicycle can be troublesome. The sidewalks are often narrow, uneven, and crammed, requiring cyclists to hop onto busy roads into oncoming traffic just to overtake. According Birgit Kastrop, an urban planner working on the track, “We need a new form of infrastructure.”

The track, popularly called the Radschnellverbindungen, will do for bikes what highways offer cars; the efficiency of broad lanes and the accessibility of distant cities.

The popularity of cycling as a means of transport is catching on across the world. The Netherlands has 28 long-distance paths for cyclists. Copenhagen has a “bike skyway.” London is planning to build a network of “direct, high capacity, joined-up cycle tracks.” Paris has unveiled a $160 million plan to build proposed “highways” for cyclists.

Here in the U.S., the number of trips made per bicycle from 2001 to 2009 more than doubled to 4 billion from just 1.7 billion, according to research from the League of American Bicyclists.
States such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee recorded increases of over 100 per cent in number of cyclists, even spurring a national Bike to Work Day every September 3.

Despite these large numbers, cyclists are yet to get the infrastructural recognition their fellows in Europe are getting.

Munich’s bicycle highway proposal, however, is not as good as done. It has to pass through the city’s political representatives where analysts predict it will face stiff opposition.

Munich is blessed with a very dense population, meaning all space is currently used in some way. Finding 4oo miles of space will mean taking away space from other users, including roads and sidewalks. As in most cities, cars take up most of the space.

Kastrup said, “Perhaps this has to change a little. Perhaps they have to give a little space to other means of transport.”

Bicycles are fast becoming the modern means of efficient, healthy and environmentally friendly commuting. Through expanded tracks, these benefits will now be available to a much larger segment of the population.

Uber Raises $1 Billion From Microsoft As Valuation Approaches $51 Billion

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Uber, now the world’s most valuable startup, has completed a new round of funding that has seen the company raise $1 billion and forge an unlikely alliance with another giant technology company.

Uber’s $1 billion cash call has caused a stir in global financial markets, especially after it was revealed that Microsoft had contributed much of the $ 1 billion sought.

It is still unclear how much Microsoft contributed. Initial reports refer to a “substantial amount” but neither of the two companies has disclosed the exact figure.

The new valuation easily makes Uber the most valuable startup in the world with a valuation of $51 billion. The record’s previous holder was China’s smartphone making startup Xiaomi, with a valuation of $45 billion.

Another investor identified in Uber’s cash call is Bennett Coleman and Company, parent company to the Times Group, the Indian media conglomerate that controls The Economic Times, The Times of India and several other regional newspapers.

Much of Uber’s deal with Microsoft was not made public, making the computer software’s motive unknown. The deal, however, is not the first time the two companies have worked together.

In June, Microsoft sold off a portion of its Bing Maps to the cab-hailing company for an undocumented sum. The sale also saw Uber absorb 100 staff from Redmond to run the newly acquired Bing maps unit.

The two giants have also worked together in integrating Uber into Redmond’s Cortana voice-controlled assistant. The integration enables users to hail an Uber ride as scheduled meetings on calendar approaches.

Microsoft’s new investment in Uber has been viewed by analysts as more than just a contribution but a partnership.

Through a statement, the taxi-hailing company has said it would use the additional capital to fund its expansion into new territories.

Uber, which started in 2009, has a presence in over 300 countries across the globe and is currently planning on increasing its presence in India, Southeast Asia and China.

Uber’s meteoric rise has seen it make several key partnerships, key among which has been its relationship with Microsoft. The two companies plan to remain strong partners in future, a future that will usher a new age of driverless driving.

Authorities Issue Charges Against CEO Of World’s Once Largest Bitcoin Exchange

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Authorities Issue Charges Against CEO Of World’s Once Largest Bitcoin Exchange

Japanese police have arrested the CEO of Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world, for financial impropriety. The charges come in the wake of an unexplained loss of up to half a billion dollars of investor money and eventual closure of the exchange.

Mark Karpeles, 30, was arrested by police in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday. A statement from the company has confirmed the arrest and detention of the executive.

Karpeles is suspected of unduly accessing the popular exchange’s computer systems before falsifying data on the company’s outstanding balance. The accounts falsification resulted in the loss of over $387 million worth of bitcoins February last year.

Japanese law enforcement officials have traced $1 million drawn from the company’s operations to an account under the control of Karpeles.

Mt. Gox was the largest trader of the virtual currency until February when it stopped investors from accessing their bitcoins after attacks from online hackers. Later on, it declared the loss of 850000 bitcoins valued at $387 million at the time.

Initially, the company blamed the loss on a bug. Later on in February, the company filed for bankruptcy.

Customers and investors were left angered by the company’s accounting failures which had translated in millions in losses for them. In the coming days, the investors would find no rest. It was later revealed that the company had also lost $27 million in cash.

In March 2014, Mt. Gox revealed that it had found 200,000 lost bitcoins in a digital wallet that had not been in use. The virtual currency was valued at $116 million, bringing the number of lost coins down to 650,000, still a significant amount as that represented 7% of all bitcoins trading in the world.

A day before Karpeles was detained, the media had reported that he would be arrested “soon.” This prompted Karpeles to issue statement through the Wall Street Journal, terming the allegations as “false” and that he was going to “of course deny” them.

Japanese authorities are yet to charge the CEO. In Japan, authorities can detain individuals for weeks over before formally leveling charges on them.

It is through Karpeles’ financial impropriety that the world’s largest bitcoin exchange was brought to its knees. The company has yet to recover one year later and investors are yet to regain their losses.

Kansas City Fed Denies Marijuana Credit Union License To Operate

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Kansas City Fed Denies Marijuana Credit Union License To Operate

A credit union designed to service the needs of Colorado’s marijuana industry has hit another roadblock on its path to legitimacy. The Federal Reserve again moved to deny the Fourth Corner Credit Union (FCCU) a master account, effectively shutting it out of the financial system.

The move prevents the credit union from moving money electronically and using debit and credit cards, thereby forcing it to rely on an all cash business model. With nearly all banks refusing to open accounts with marijuana businesses in Colorado, and elsewhere, the industry has been forced to improvise with armored cars, safes, and alternatives to traditional banking.

South Carolina lawyer Mark Mason is leading the creation of the FCCU, and was unsurprised with the denial of their application for a master account. Having already received a Colorado state license last year, Mason’s credit union was awaiting approval from the Fed before it could open for business.

Mason has responded by filing a lawsuit against the Fed, which could force a resolution to the issue of conflicting state and federal marijuana regulations. President of the Kansas City Fed, Esther George stated that the Fed had “discretion” regarding master accounts. In a related move, the National Credit Union Administration (NCCA) stated that the FCCU was not eligible for its $250,000 deposit insurance defending its actions by stating that FCCU had not shown how it would, “mitigate the risk associated with serving a single industry that does not have an established track record of success and remains illegal at the federal level.”

A separate lawsuit was filed by Mr. Mason against the NCCA on Thursday night, claiming due process violations. Mason remains most troubled by the Fed decision, for it would still be possible to obtain private deposit insurance without the NCCA.

Citing the Fed’s own rules in his lawsuit, he alleges that the Fed has little discretion in deciding who should be given a master account. Until there is a change in federal policy, customers will have to continue carrying cash.

Google Partners With Aclima To Bring Pollution Data To Google Maps

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Google Partners With Aclima To Bring Pollution Data To Google Maps

In an effort to expand its data offerings, search giant Google has collaborated with Aclima, a California-based environment sensory network, to integrate environmental sensors into its Street View cars. After a successful month long test on trial vehicles in Denver’s city streets, and clocking over 750 hours of drive time, the partnership sailed forward towards it goal of better understanding air quality in metropolitan environments.

Google’s Street View platform has shown its users the world on the streets, across forests, over mountaintops, and even underwater in 360 degrees since it’s introduction in 2007. Its latest project aims to provide useful data on the quality and consistency of the air we breathe.

The goal of the collaboration is to create high-resolution maps that will have the ability to read air quality across cities. The Street View cars that have mapped and measured the world’s streets, will soon be equipped with sensors that will allow them to take measurements of environmental gasses that have a harmful impact on health, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, methane, black carbon and more.

“We have a profound opportunity to understand how cities live and breathe in an entirely new way by integrating Aclima’s mobile sensing platform with Google Maps and Street View cars” said Aclima CEO Davida Herzl. “With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, environmental health is becoming increasingly important to quality of life.”

In combination with air quality measurements from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s network of stationary monitoring equipment, the Street View readings will take on a new environmental mission in street level awareness of pollution in urban air. This data will initiate an entire new genre of analysis and dialogue on the condition of inner-city air quality.

Google and Aclima have set the stage for continuous collaboration with scientists and the urban communities they track to make substantial use of the new data collected as they begin the air quality mapping effort in the San Francisco Bay Area this fall.

Uber To Invest $1 Billion Dollars In India Amid Intense Competition

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In an attempt to push competing taxi service OlaCabs from the Indian market, Uber plans to invest a whopping $1 billion into its India operations. Because their ride sharing business requires no infrastructure investment, much of that money is expected to go towards an aggressive marketing campaign, highlighting the intense competition the company faces in large markets like India and China. The funding is also expected to also go towards new products and an improved support network.

President of Uber India, Amit Jain, commented on the company’s impressive growth in India, “We are continuing to see robust 40% growth month-on-month and with more investment in product, hiring and payment solutions, we expect to grow at an even faster rate.” Jain also added that China and uberPOOL are its other main priorities, uberPOOL being a carpooling service that results in lower fares compared to using Uber alone.

The news comes after the announcement in June that Uber would also be investing $1 billion into the Chinese market, which may have been a reaction to the merger in February between China’s most popular mobile taxi-hailing services, Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. OlaCabs still remains the largest player in India, tallying more than twice as many rides per day as Uber in over 100 cities.

OlaCabs is finishing up a round of fundraising, recently acquiring $400 million and bringing the company’s valuation to $2.4 billion, but Uber easily beats OlaCabs in size, currently valued at $40 billion.

The new marketing campaign will have to deal with some existing public backlash after Uber service was suspended in New Delhi last December when a driver was accused of rape. The company has since added a “panic button” feature, which alerts local police in an emergency. If all goes according to plan, Uber hopes to provide 1 million rides per day by March 2016, much higher than their current output of 200,000 rides per day, as well as expanding its current reach in India from 18 cities, to 40, and available drivers from 50,000 to 200,000.

Japanese Scientists Fire World’s Most Powerful Laser

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Japanese Scientists Fire World’s Most Powerful Laser

Japanese laser engineers from Osaka University leaped to the head of their field in laser power output recently, with the first firing of their 2 petawatt (2 x 1015 watts) laser. This power output is twice the power of the world’s second most powerful laser of 1 petawatt, which is located at the University of Texas, Austin. The laser pulse was achieved for the incredibly short duration of one picosecond, or one trillionth of a second, and holds promise to further research in the field of particle physics.

The news comes at the same time as the Japanese Navy announcement of funding being allocated for two future warships, which will include electromagnetically powered railguns for artillery in addition to lasers for ship defense. This comes after the U.S. Navy successfully completed tests on a laser defense system in the Persian Gulf last summer. Star Wars seems closer than ever as the University of Osaka takes its place alongside other pioneers in laser development.

A laser such as the one at the University of Osaka is unlikely to be used in a military application simply due to its size, at more than 300 feet long. Known as a Laser for Fast Ignition Experiments (LFEX), the operation involves applying light energy to a special type of glass, with the resulting beam being amplified and focused over the 300 foot machine. The Osaka laser is most likely to be used in fusion research, nanotechnology, and materials design, rather than in military applications.

To get a sense of how large the power output of the pulse was, it is equivalent to 1,000 times the electrical power consumption of the world. Although at first counterintuitive, the actual energy used during the test is quite small due to the extremely short duration of the pulse, equivalent to the energy to run a microwave for two seconds.

Osaka University scientists are not resting on their laurels, with plans to increase their power output in order to produce a 10 petawatt pulse. Plans for 10 petawatt lasers in Europe, China and elsewhere are underway, but at that level of power, a more damage-resistant mirror will have to be developed.

Former Executives Indicted Over Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

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Former Executives Indicted Over Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Prosecutors in Tokyo were forced by a Japanese civilian judiciary panel to indict three former Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives for their failure to take preventative measures leading up to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Prosecutors at first rejected the move to indict during the initial meeting of the panel in January, but after the panel arrived at the same decision after their second meeting, the prosecutors are required by law to carry out the panel’s recommendations.

According to a copy of the ruling, the former executives failed to take countermeasures to strengthen the Fukushima Daiichi plant despite foresight of the danger posed by tsunamis.

This will be the first criminal case involving Tepco officials regarding the disaster, and the committee’s decision gives voice to a group of more than 5,700 Japanese civilians from Fukushima and other parts of Japan who have urged prosecutors to take action on the issue.

Previous parliamentary investigative reports have criticized a lack of safety culture at TEPCO. Other findings included collusion between TEPCO personnel and regulators as well as the charge that TEPCO ignored taking measures related to tsunami defense.

With the cleanup and decommissioning process expected to take between 10 and 30 years, and some 160,000 residents still under evacuation from the affected area, the decision by the citizen panel still seems unlikely to lead to a conviction of the former executives. Former chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, and executives Sakae Muto, and Ichiro Takekuro were indicted for the triple meltdown in what has been described as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

All 48 functional nuclear reactors are currently offline, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is trying to change that as soon as possible, with two reactors expected to come back online within weeks. Thousands will continue to work on the cleanup effort, collecting the large volumes of contaminated soil, water, and other debris.

Beijing Becomes First City To Host Both Summer And Winter Olympics

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Beijing Becomes First City To Host Both Summer And Winter Olympics

For the first time in Olympics history, one city has been chosen to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) announced earlier today that it has chosen Beijing, China to host the 2022 Winter Games. Beijing also hosted the Summer Games just seven years ago, in 2008. The announcement of Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Games came at the end of a very interesting bidding race. The only other city that was in contention for the Games was Almaty, Kazakhstan, an oil-rich, developing country in Central Asia. Almaty received 40 votes from IOC members while Beijing received 44 votes. The choice between only two cities came after Oslo, Munich, and Stockholm bowed out of the race due to economic and political concerns.

The decision to choose Beijing as the host of the 2022 Winter Olympics was a “safe choice” according to Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC. Beijing’s commercial success at the 2008 Summer Games led voters to believe it could successfully host the 2022 Winter Games in a similar manner. Other members stated that Beijing’s status as a tourist destination was also a factor.

Money and experience were the key elements to Beijing’s presentation to IOC voters. Much of the presentation highlighted the successes of the 2008 Games, where Beijing spent greater than $40 billion to host the world’s largest international sporting event.

Many of Beijing’s citizens did not see exactly why the city would bid for the Winter Games as not many Chinese people play, compete in or watch winter sports. However, China has recently created a special program, costing greater than $30 million, that is intended to produce and develop Chinese athletes in sports like Nordic combined skiing, luge, skeleton and bob sled. Whether the Winter Games will resonate with Chinese citizens is yet to be seen.

The choice of Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Games also has upset many human rights activists and watch groups given China’s stance on certain individual liberties. Minky Worden, the global initiative director at Human Rights Watch, stated that the current situation in China could be described as “the worst crackdown in the post-1989 period across the board.”

There is also concern over Beijing’s continuing air pollution problem. Some experts wonder how the snow-making operation will affect the environment. The IOC responded that Beijing showed it could control smog and air pollution at the 2008 Summer Games and also that the city remains committed to protecting the environment.

Despite all of these issues, the IOC ultimately decided that Beijing was the right choice.

Chinese Court Rules Michael Jordan Can’t Own His Trademark Name

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Chinese Court Rules Michael Jordan Can’t Own His Trademark Name

At the conclusion of a legal battle that began three years ago, China’s highest court has ruled against basketball king Michael Jordan by dismissing his trademark infringement case. Although Jordan and his legal team lost the case, Jordan considers his adversary, the Chinese company Qiaodan, the de facto loser. In the court’s ruling, which seems backwards according to many United States trademark attorneys, Jordan essentially lost the rights to his own name.

Basketball is extremely popular in China and Michael Jordan is by far the most popular player. “Qiaodan” is the Mandarin transliteration of “Jordan” and has been used to refer to the former NBA star in China since the 1980s. Despite the company calling itself Qiaodan, the court held that “‘Jordan’” is not the only possible reference for ‘Qiaodan’ in the trademark under dispute. In addition, ‘Jordan’ is a common surname used by Americans.” Essentially, the current evidence did not persuade the court that “Qiaodan” determinedly is synonymous with Michael Jordan.

It may make sense that the name Jordan by itself cannot be trademarked. However, when the Qiaodan company sells sports products, especially basketball products including jerseys, shoes and other merchandise, and uses the number 23 and uses an eerily similar version of Michael Jordan’s “Jumpman” mark, it would seem that Michael Jordan and, in turn, Nike trademarks, are improperly being used.

When Jordan, whose personal brand Air Jordan is a division of Nike, demanded the imitator deregister the name in China, Qiaodan Sports instead hit back, giving an incredibly far-fetched explanation for their brand name. Apparently, the Chinese courts bought it. China is known for its rampant counterfeiting and the country is constantly criticized by other countries over little protection of intellectual property rights, including trademarks.

Although Qiaodan won the lawsuit, it definitely suffered in the lengthy legal battle. In 2012, the sportswear company had more than 5,700 stores in China and brought in $276 million in revenue. It was also preparing an Initial Public Offering (“IPO”) in the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Because of its legal troubles, the IPO has been hampered for three years and Qiaodan Sports is now known as a major knockoff, both abroad and in China.

Sports commentator Fang Zhengyu reported that “even if he lost one case after another, as long as he prevented Qiaodan Sports from rising further, Michael Jordan can consider his opponent the de facto loser.” And Jordan himself is not doing too bad either. In 2014, the Jordan Brand made $2.6 billion in U.S. shoe sales alone, and the star earned over $100 million from sponsorship deals.

Breakthrough Double Hand Transplant See Young Boy Receive Two New Hands

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In a medical breakthrough and a surgical first, a 40-member team of surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists successfully attached two hands and forearms to an eight-year old boy who lost his hands when he was just a toddler. The surgery, taking place at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, occurred after the team practiced for months on cadavers. When it was time for the actual surgery, it was like an army going into battle and they were determined to win. Chief surgeon, Dr. L. Scott Levin, told his troops before the operation started that, “We know what we have to do today. I know everybody assembled here has a commitment to this patient and making this a reality for this little boy. We can have complications. We can fail. We can have trouble. But we’re not planning on it.”

The little boy receiving the new hands is Zion Harvey, a child with amazing courage and hope. He told doctors that he wanted hands so that he could swing on the monkey bars and so that he could hold his little sister and swing her in his arms.

The surgery is not the first major hurdle that Zion had to overcome. When he was just two years old, he lost both of his hands and his feet and part of his legs. He suffered a life-threatening bacterial infection that led to not only the amputations, but also to a kidney transplant.

After years of wishing for hands, and over 18 months of observations and evaluations by an array of doctors, the optimistic and fun-loving, little eight-year old received life altering news: he was eligible for a double hand transplant and was placed on a waitlist. Through the Gift of Life Donor Program, he received the call after only a few months on the list that the surgery was going to happen.

Not even the prospect of failure seemed to faze Zion. “When I get these hands, I will be proud of what hands I get, and if it gets messed up, I don’t care because I have my family.”

When the time came, the surgery lasted over 10 hours. The procedure was so complicated that the medical team had to label various anatomical parts with tags. After several hours, Dr. Levin saw signs of success: Zion’s new hand was pink. When doctors pressed his palm, it turned white briefly and then pink again, indicating blood flow in the newly attached hand.

Zion, his family and doctors are thrilled that the surgery was a success, even though he has a long road ahead of him. Zion will be required to take immunosuppressant medication for the rest of his life in order to avoid rejection of his new hands. He also needs to stay at a rehabilitation unit for several weeks where he will undergo rigorous physical therapy before returning to his home in Baltimore. Zion is simply happy the procedure was successful and is taking it all in stride.

The first bilateral hand transplant on an adult occurred in 2011. The foundation that surgeons learned from that procedure as well as developments in pediatric surgery allowed the medical team to take the next step by performing the surgery on Zion. Dr. Levin hopes that Zion’s surgery is just the beginning for what they can do for other children hoping to have their hands restored.

Samsung Profits Tank As Chinese Smartphone Makers Take Over The Industry

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Samsung Profits Tank As Chinese Smartphone Makers Take Over The Industry

Samsung Electronics posted a dismal eight per cent drop in profits for the second successive quarter that was largely attributed to the slow uptake of its smartphone the Galaxy S6 in the face of increased competition. Troubling times are ahead for one of the world’s largest tech companies, largely due to cutthroat competition from Chinese upstarts Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo’s acquisition of Motorola.

Samsung posted a decline in net profits to $4.9 billion for the period running April to June 2015. The company’s mobile division profits also went down to $2.35 billion from $3.7 billion a year earlier representing a 62 per cent drop. Sales for the company’s products also took a hit, dropping 7.2 per cent to $41.7 billion.

This marks the seventh successive quarter the Korean electronics maker has posted a decline in profits.

Earlier this year, Samsung had warned that it was going to miss its targeted earnings for the second quarter of the year. The drop was expected due to a miscalculation of the expected demand for the company’s Galaxy S6 brands.

Samsung initially predicted that the Galaxy S6 smartphone would sell four times more than its alternative make, the S6 Edge. What played out in reality was different.

In the market, just as many users wanted the S6 as those that did the S6 Edge, evening out demand. This led to a crippling shortage of the S6 Edge and huge stocks of unpurchased Galaxy S6 smartphones across the globe.

Samsung said, “Although revenue increased, profits increased marginally [quarter over quarter], due to supply difficulties from higher-than-expected market demand for the Galaxy S6 Edge, as well as increased marketing expenditures that typically accompany flagship product launches.”
Although the company made efforts to remedy the situation, the unexpected supply boost led to higher supply costs, bringing down the smartphone maker’s profits.

Competition also reared its ugly head in the smartphone maker’s sales books. On the high end, Sammy lost market share to Apple and its trendy iPhone brand. At the lower end, increased production of cheaper smartphones by emerging companies stifled growth.

Operating in the cut throat competitive market has become tougher and Samsung is bracing its shareholders for tougher times by issuing early warnings.

Samsung said “While [the second half of] 2015 is expected to present mounting challenges, the company will try to improve earnings.”

Part of Samsung’s strategy to combat the glut in demand is to unveil a new set of high-end high-priced smart phones, their oncoming Galaxy Note 5 tablet and the reduction of pricing on their low end phones. Already, Sammy’s phone prices have dropped by over 10 per cent to below $300 compared to the iPhone’s price rise by more than $100 in the last year.

Sammy has issued another warning for the coming third quarter as it struggles to even out market demand and supply, while unveiling new products. Analysts are in agreement, things are bound to get worse before they do get better for the Korean company.

First Pieces Of Doomed MH370 Flight May Have Been Found Near Madagascar

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First Pieces Of Doomed MH370 Flight May Have Been Found Near Madagascar

In a major development in one of the greatest aviation mysteries in history, it is possible that the first physical piece of evidence may have been recovered. On Wednesday, at about 9:30 A.M. local time, a group of beach cleaners on Reunion Island stumbled upon a piece of an airplane wing that could be part of missing Malaysian Flight MH370. Analysts say the flaperon, a portion of a plane’s wing, likely belongs to a Boeing 777. If it confirmed that it is part of a 777, it likely belongs to MH370.

MH370 suddenly disappeared after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 8, 2014 bound for Beijing, China. The plane had 239 people onboard. Authorities are still baffled as to why the plan suddenly turned dramatically off course over the area between Malaysia and Vietnam before losing all communication and detection with air traffic control. They also do not know where the plane eventually ended its journey.

An international team of experts used the principles of ocean currents and satellite data to eventually calculate that the plan likely went down in the southern Indian Ocean. Since the disappearance of the plane, Australia has been leading the search for the aircraft, and teams have focused their efforts painstakingly searching the ocean floor in the Indian Ocean. The search area is approximately 2,300 miles from where the debris was found Wednesday morning. Since the plane’s disappearance, Australia, Malaysia, the United States and other countries have spent tens of millions of dollars searching for the missing plane.

Although officials are cautiously optimistic that the debris is a piece of the missing plane, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak went so far as to say that the debris is “very likely from a Boeing 777.” If it is from a 777, it is very likely from MH370 because there have been very few 777 crashes, and none have occurred near the area where MH370 is suspected to have gone down. The Malaysian Transport Ministry cautioned that “until there is tangible and irrefutable evidence that the flaperon does belong to the missing aircraft, it would be premature to speculate.”

Australian officials hopes to hear by the weekend definitively whether the debris is from MH370.

Genetically Modified Rice Discovered That Produces Higher Yields While Cutting 90% Of Greenhouse Gases

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Genetically Modified Rice Discovered That Produces Higher Yields While Cutting 90% Of Greenhouse Gases

Scientists in China have come up with a new genetically modified breed of rice that can produce higher yields and starch content while reducing methane gas emissions. The new breed of rice has been heralded as the best way to increase food production for the growing masses without compromising on quality or the environment.

Talk of greenhouses gases and methane immediately comes to mind. Methane is one of the largest contributors to ozone layer depletion known to man. Traditional reserves for methane are usually linked to naturally occurring gases and livestock. However, rice farming is also one of the largest sources of methane gas.

Roots of rice plants release organic compounds that decompose and are eaten by microbes in the muck of rice paddies, turning them into methane. What have been known for long as simply rice paddies are actually human controlled wetlands contributing to methane gas emissions on a global scale.

Researchers led by Jun Su, Xia Yan and Chanquan Hu from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have found an answer for this phenomenon: a gene found in barley.
Through the gene occurring naturally in barley, the scientists sought to genetically modify rice plants to reduce methane production.

The researchers planted several hybrid rice plants across several areas, monitoring their growth. They also checked their methane gas emissions. The results were startling.

At the baseline, the microbes present at the roots of the plants reduced by over a half, completely starved of food. Methane gas emissions reduced by 90 to 99 per cent depending on the plant’s growth stage. But what was happening above ground?

They discovered that the barley gene concentrated above ground growth leading to stronger flower clusters and higher yield. The hybrid plants resulted in higher yields per plant-approximately 50 per cent more in terms of weight. The starch content present was also higher than for ordinary rice seeds. Per seed, starch content increased by 10 per cent. Conclusively, above ground weight went up by 30 per cent while below ground weight decreased by 35 per cent.

Methane gas emissions have been a poignant problem with rice plantations worldwide. Conventional methods of combating their emission bore no fruit as they led to lower yields, leading many farmers to abandon these methods completely. With the new research, scientists are hoping to end greenhouse gas emissions at the plantations once and for all.

Giant New Oil Spill Spotted Off The Coast Of California

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A “very large” oil slick was spotted along the coast of Santa Barbara, Southern California on Wednesday, with initial reports putting the spill at about two miles long and just yards away from where a May oil spill leaked 21,000 gallons of oil into the ocean, completely damaging the coast’s ecosystem.

The spill was first spotted off the beach in Goleta on Wednesday morning at around 10am. Santa Barbara County Fire department reported being alerted by calls from people complaining about the smell of oil along the coastline near the University of California.

Firefighters arrived at the scene to find two kayakers coming ashore with their feet and boat covered in oil.

Immediately, a marine safety team was dispatched to investigate the cause of the oil leak. No clear indication has been given of its source.

Petty Officer 1st class Sondra-Kay Kneen said of the investigations, “I’m not sure when we’ll find out.”

Initial aerial photos of the slick showed it floating close to Santa Barbara’s Platform Holly oil facility. Officials from Venoco Inc., which operates the facility have refuted any incidents at their facility.

According to officials, the platform was shut down and there was no oil in its pipeline. Zach Shulman, company director for corporate finance and investor relations said, “Absent another source, the sheen is most likely due to natural seepage, which can vary from day-to-day.”

Earlier this year on May 19, an onshore pipeline burst open, releasing 100,000 gallons of pure crude, 21,000 gallons of which leaked into the ocean. The resulting environmental impact was nerve wracking.

The entire coast line reeked of oil, beaches and campgrounds were closed, commercial fishing was banned and nearly 300 aquatic mammals and birds died. It would be weeks before the oil could be cleared.

Clean up costs for the spill were estimated at $92 million. Refugio, one of the hardest hit beaches, reopened only two weeks ago.

Officer Kneen, in clarifying the extent of the current sheen, reported that it had not come ashore. She also added that it would clear naturally as it wasn’t “thick enough to scoop up.”

Oil slicks around the Santa Barbara coastline occur frequently. The region is blessed with abundant reserves of offshore oil, making it prone to the environmentally degrading seepages. Operations along the town’ coastline continue uninhibited as a report on the cause of the seepage is awaited.

Amazon Shows Its Dead Serious About TV After Luring Hit Show Top Gear Away From Netflix

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Amazon Shows Its Dead Serious About TV After Luring Hit Show Top Gear Away From Netflix

In a major coup for Amazon, it has finalized a three-year deal with the stars and producer of the BBC hit, Top Gear. Amazon Prime Video beat out other suitors, including ITV, Hulu and Netflix, despite bookmakers’ predictions that Netflix had the edge. In fact, Netflix was a 6-4 favorite over Amazon or Hulu. Speculation had been mounting over the team’s next move, and the deal with Amazon comes as a surprise to many media analysts, who had considered the streaming service an outside contender for Jeremy Clarkson’s signature. It is not yet apparent as to why Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May chose Amazon over its competitors, but one can speculate that Amazon made a deal the trio could not refuse.

Top Gear, one of the BBC’s most watched shows, aired on the British channel for 21 seasons. The show generated over $78 million for BBC Worldwide. Its stars, Clarkson, Hammond and May won millions of viewers’ hearts with their personalities, automotive knowledge and camaraderie. Because of that goodwill, Amazon officials are not worried about not being allowed to take the Top Gear name with them. Former Top Gear executive producer, Andy William stated that, “[t]he show went global because of Richard, James and Jeremy, and grew at a time when channel loyalty, schedules, all those pillars of traditional TV watching, have fallen away . . . [They] are looking for a global platform.”

The move to Amazon comes after Clarkson was abruptly fired by BBC after he punched one of the show’s producers in the face over a hot meal. Specifically, the producer failed to get the star a hot dinner after a long day of filming, and the two got into a brawl. Although BBC made very generous offers to Hammond and May to remain with Top Gear, the two stated that no amount of money would persuade them to stay with BBC without Clarkson. Hence the move to another platform.

Amazon is attempting to take on Netflix by airing more original content and attracting major projects. Jay Marine, vice-president of Amazon Prime Video in Europe stated that, “[c]ustomers told us they wanted to see the [Top Gear] team back on screen, and [Amazon] is excited to make that happen. . . Millions of Prime members are already enjoying [its] ground-breaking original shows. [It] can’t wait to see what Jeremy, Richard, James and the team will create in what is sure to be one of the most globally anticipated shows of 2016. . .[Amazon’s] approach is to give programme makers creative freedom to be innovative and make the shows they want to make. This is just the start, [viewers] should expect to see more world-leading talent and the biggest shows on Prime Video.”

Amazon’s mission statement seems to be extremely similar to that of Netflix. It is likely that competition between the two companies will heat up as both try to attract the entertainment industry’s top stars and talent.

Politicians Defend Their Own As Rep. Fattah Indicted For Racketeering

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Politicians Defend Their Own As Rep. Fattah Indicted For Racketeering

Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah was indicted along with four associates Wednesday on racketeering conspiracy charges involving the misuse of hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant money to further personal and political interests.

The five indictments detail schemes which include the acceptance of an illegal loan of $1 million for Rep. Fattah’s failed campaign for Mayor in 2007. The loan, from a “wealthy supporter”, was repaid by “charitable and federal grant funds” through a nonprofit which Fattah founded and controlled, said U.S. Attorney David Memeger.

Federal authorities went on to accuse Fattah, who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, PA, of using his influence to seek a $15 million federal grant for a political consultant as part of a plan to “extinguish” a debt of $150,000 Fattah owed to him. Fattah also allegedly accepted an $18,000 bribe in return for his attempt to secure an ambassadorship or appointment to the U.S. Trades Commission for a lobbyist. Furthermore, Fattah was accused of using funds from his mayoral and congressional campaigns to repay a $23,000 student loan for his son, Chaka “Chip” Fattah, Jr.

Fattah roundly denied the charges, smiling as he told reporters in Washington, “I’ll stand by my previous statement that I’ve never been involved in any wrongdoing, any unlawful activity, any misappropriation of federal funds.

Fattah added “This is not Deflategate”, referring to the New England Patriots Super Bowl cheating scandal. Fattah said his work for his constituents was of primary importance, and that he would “try not to have it be a distraction.” Fattah’s lawyer Luther Weaver said that he could not provide comment since he had not yet seen the indictment.

Today’s indictments have been years in the making. Federal subpoenas have been issued to Fattah’s office,. and there has been much legal wrangling over access to work e-mails regarding cases against Fattah, Jr. and his two closest political advisors during Fattah’s mayoral campaign. Fattah has maintained his innocence throughout the investigations, saying that federal prosecutors were pursuing charges for personal reasons.

Fattah’s wife, NBC 10 News anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah, is currently on leave from her position, having been mentioned throughout the 85-page indictment, including as a participant in a scheme to falsely report the $18,000 sale of her Porsche Carrera Convertible to a lobbyist.

The other four persons indicted were Bonnie Bowser, Fattah’s chief-of-staff; Karen Nicholas, a former staffer; Herbert Vederman, a lobbyist and deputy mayor during the tenure of Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell; and Robert Brand, who runs a technology company. Mr. Vederman’s attorney Catherine M. Recker said that he will plead innocent, accusing the government of cherry-picking facts “to support its cynical view of friendship and wrongly labeled it bribery.

Outside City Hall, Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter, a 35-year colleague of Fattah, praised the Congressman a longtime champion for the city and the nation.

“I’ve said many, many times…Chaka Fattah has probably helped more children go to college than any other member of the U.S. Congress,” Nutter said. He declined to comment further on the investigation, or on whether Fattah should step down from his seat.

Fattah earned further praise from U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who called Fattah a “tireless and effective advocate for America’s hardworking families” and said she found the indictment “deeply saddening”. She told reporters that Fattah has already stepped down as the ranking Democratic member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee. Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman Rep. Robert Brady called the indictment “a major loss for the city”, saying that hearing of the indictment on Wednesday morning “knocked [him] for a loop.”

Federal officials stressed the importance of the indictment. Leslie Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department said “Corruption like what is charged today really shakes public confidence.”

Edward Hanko, the special agent-in-charge at the FBI’s Philadelphia Office, said “As citizens, we expect honest services from those elected to represent us at all levels of government.” He called the alleged crimes and subsequent cover-ups “a breach of the public trust.”

Study Finds Fifteen Per Cent Of Americans Don’t Use The Internet

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Study Finds Fifteen Per Cent Of Americans Don’t Use The Internet

An stunning 15 per cent of Americans do not use the internet according to a new study by Pew Research that revealed close to 47 million U.S. citizens simply don’t go online. Age, internet costs and regional demographics are chiefly to blame.

The number of people not on the internet has remained steady since 2013. According to Pew, “the size of this group (of non-Internet users) has changed little over the past three years, despite recent government and social service programs to encourage Internet adoption.”

So who exactly are they? The elderly, accustomed to life without the internet, make up a large number. The research revealed that 40 per cent of people aged 65 and older do not go online. This compares with just 3 per cent of 18-29 year old millennials, who use the connection technology in virtually all aspects of their life.

While 40 per cent may seem large, Pew found that the figure has actually gone down, with more and more seniors getting connected. In 2000, 86 per cent of Americans aged above 65 were not online.

The cost of internet access has been blamed as the prime reason for the poor uptake of broadband connectivity. The research revealed that low income people were less likely to use internet than the more affluent. One out of every four people earning less than $30,000 a year was unconnected. The proportion was eight times less than that of the wealthier demographic.

Generally, the cost of internet connection has gone down. Internet enabled technology costs have declined, but not enough for everyone. Reuters reports that consumers pay an average of $50 monthly for broadband, which is $10 more than what was paid 10 years ago.

Other factors were found to play a role in determining online access. An example is the rural-metropolitan demographic. 24 per cent of rural individuals did not have access to the web while only 13 per cent of the urban folk were offline.

Whites and Asian Americans were the most likely to use the internet while only one in five African Americans and only 18 per cent of Hispanics went online.

In general terms, the number of Americans actively using the internet has increased. In 2000, only half of the U.S. citizens used the internet. Today the figure is way up at 85 per cent.

Pew researchers said, “Despite some groups having persistently lower rates of Internet adoption, the vast majority of Americans are online.”

The study was conducted by polling 5,005 adults in 2015. The margin of error has been placed at 1.6 percentage points.

An increasing uptake of connectivity by Americans shows just how far digital connection has come. Only time will tell whether the remaining 15 per cent will be roped into the fold, as politicians and major internet companies steadily push to connect 100 per cent of the population.

Hacked Federal Employees Swamp Identity Theft Protection Program

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Hacked Federal Employees Swamp Identity Theft Protection Program

In the wake of the devastating hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), nearly 22 percent of the 4.2 million victims who had their personal information exposed subsequently enrolled with CSID, a company that provides credit and identity theft protection services. Prior to the OPM hack, only between 3-5 percent of victims opted into these services.

Furthermore, an OPM spokesman said that even those who did not proactively enroll will receive identity restoration services, which automatically restore credit and assist with any legal proceedings in the event of personal information being used for nefarious purposes.

The number of victims signing up for post-hack protections is quite unprecedented–960,000 victims signed up for CSID services, nearly a quarter of all those hacked. By comparison, only 3 percent of the 3.5 million victims of a recent Texas comptroller’s office hack signed up for CSID services. The demand for such services is even lower in the private sector: in the recent massive hack of the insurance giant Anthem, only 0.5 percent of the 80 million victims who had their information exposed enrolled in protection services.

In an interview with Government Executive, CSID co-founder and President Joe Ross attributed the high rate of enrollment to a combination of “circumstances and calculated effort.”

After the hack, CSID collaborated with OPM to ensure that every current and former employee affected would receive a notification via email or Postal Service. If a “return-to-sender” message was encountered, CSID went into the USPS national registry to attempt to find an updated address. These measures, coupled with heavy press coverage, drove numbers of enrollment to unexpected levels, Ross explained.

Ross said that neither CSID nor OPM made a concerted effort to encourage those contacted victims to enroll, however CSID set up an easy-to-use Web portal for that purpose. Still, CSID was “caught off guard” by the number of individuals enrolling for protection services; both employees and their advocates began complaining of long wait times and poor customer service.

Winvale, the company that won OPM’s contract and in turn contracted CSID, collected a flat fee of $21 million. Similarly, CSID collected a flat fee based on the size of the hacked population.

Ross said that CSID’s services go beyond simple monitoring of credit, remarking “Your IPhone can do that.” Hack victims will be instantly notified if their name or address is falsely given in connection to a crime or added to a sex offender list. Notifications will also be sent in the event of address changes, or if personal information is posted on the “Dark Web.”

OPM has started “ongoing discussions” with bidding candidates for a contractor that will offer protection services to the 21.5 million people affected by the background investigations data breach, which included not only federal employees and contractors, but their family members as well as applicants. Potential candidates are warned that their services will have to be geared for an extraordinarily high number of users, and that the demand for services could be in excess of 20 percent. Bidders on the new OPM contract will have to take higher enrollment rates into account, says Ross, noting that “we set the bar, not just for the take rate but also the breach response product.”

Winvale CEO Kevin Lancaster confirmed to Government Executive that his company is already expected to make an attempt for this second contract, saying that while the victims of the government hack “took it a lot more serious”, he hopes that the victims of the second hack will react in a similar fashion, “because this is a serious problem.”

Army Testing Frightening New Noise Cannon As Push To Digital Weapons Continues

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The U.S military is due to begin tests on a new weapon designed not to kill the enemy but frighten them into a state of retreat. The weapon is known as the Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (LIPE) or LIPE, and is currently being fine tuned by two U.S companies that have been awarded $1.5 million each to do so.

LIPE was invented by the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWD), an organization that has been given the task of inventing options for checkpoint security and crowd control. The weapon “fires” a 130-decibel roar right into your face without you being able to identify where the sound originates from.

That noise comes from a manipulation of energy and matter which produces and fires extremely short bursts of directed high energy at a target – a person, an object or an area of space. The energy separates electrons and nuclei at the target to create a blue ball of plasma which is then hit with pulses of directed laser energy which manipulates the ball into creating a noise that appears to come from nowhere.

JNLWD technology chief David Law said “We’ve demonstrated it in the lab at very short ranges. But we haven’t been able to demonstrate it at even 100 meters. That’s the next step.”

That step will cost $3 million which will be shared by Physical Optics Corp, which will develop the lighting effects, and Tucson headquartered company GEOST, which will work on the sound aspect.

LIPE isn’t the first attempt by the U.S. military to use plasma matter. In 2002 ,JNLWD developed a program named the Pulsed Energy Projectile which the New Scientist magazine reported at the time as a sound effect to “literally knock rioters off their feet.” Then in 2004, the U.S. Navy trialed plasma’s properties as a missile deflector.

Both of these early plasma weapons required enormous power and weighed in excess of 500 pounds but over the years have been refined.

“What we do with these prototypes to date is power them off of just a regular car battery. They don’t take a lot of energy, but there is … very high peak power, which is what makes this thing work,” said Law.

“Current plasmas maybe achieve 90 to 100 decibels … we are trying to get to be around 130 or a little more. We’ve been working this in bits and pieces since 2009, but it really has been just over the past couple years that the laser technology has matured enough to be able to potentially get this kind of sound out.”

Law said the goal is to have LIPEs ready for full testing by May, 2016.

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