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It’s Official: 2016 White House Race Will Likely Be Bush vs Clinton

Jeb Bush made an informal announcement that he will formally announce he is running for president, in two weeks.

In a strange tweet published early Thursday morning, he announced “Coming soon…” with a link to a website funded by “Jeb 2016, Inc.”

A senior aide then clarified to the media that he will make the official announcement on June 15th.

The move ends a ‘will he, won’t he’ tour of the country as merely a prospective presidential candidate. His official press conference will take place at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus.

The location is an indication he will make education one of his central policy goals, a strategy he used when he was governor of Florida.

For America, Bush’s candidacy brings more of the same old D.C. politics from a dynasty American family. There has not been an election in over 20 years that did not feature either a Bush or a Clinton.

Should either of them make it to office, which is the probably outcome given both are the favorites of their respective parties, America will see more of the same thinking and more of the same people running the White House.

While America needs change, big corporations, who determine who gets elected, want people they can trust not to rock the status quo.

T-Mobile And Dish Network In Talks To Merge

Ahead of the FCC’s tough new network neutrality rules everyone in the tv and mobile phone space seems desperate to merge.

The latest to just the party is T-Mobile and the Dish Network, whose merger would in theory create another large competitor in the wireless industry.

Dish has been eyeing a mobile phone network for some time, having previously looked to purchase Sprint before the deal fell apart. Talks between Dish and T-Mobile are ongoing, multiple sources confirmed.

Dish is the number 2 satellite television service in the United States, and has acquired vast amounts of wireless spectrum. With a purchase of T-Mobile that spectrum could be put to use by an operator with towers and experience running a mobile network.

The combined subscriber base of tens of millions of customers would allow the two companies to offer package services of phone and TV, and possibly web based TV offerings.

But first, they’d have to strike a deal.

While the Wall St. Journal reports the two are in “close agreement” about a leadership team, “with Dish Chief Executive Charlie Ergen becoming the company’s chairman and his T-Mobile counterpart, John Legere, serving as the combined company’s CEO.”

The telecommunications industry is seeing rapid consolidation as rival AT&T, is seeking to merge with DirecTV and Charter Communications announced plans to merge with Time Warner Cable. Comcast, the largest TV provider, has already done a couple of mergers, most notably with NBC Universal.

NFL Announces First Regular Season Game To Stream On The Web For Free

In what is likely to be the media deal of the year, the National Football League has partnered with Yahoo for the one time internet darling to be the exclusive partner to deliver the first-ever live stream of a regular season NFL game, for free, over the Internet.

The game will be aired live and will not block certain countries and instead be available to anyone, anywhere around the world, making it a first.

The game will be the NFL’s International Series game in London, England, on Sunday, Oct. 25th, 2015, between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars.

In a strange quirk, highlighting Yahoo’s tangled mess of web properties, the game will be shown on Yahoo, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Screen and Tumblr.

The move is obviously a test given its a low value game for traditional TV networks because it airs at 9:30am Eastern, meaning the West Coast won’t watch and there will be less fans on the East Coast as well.

The game is a huge test for Yahoo. It will, in one moment, prove whether the elderly internet company can deliver such an important broadcast without screwing it up. A tecnical difficulty in streaming the game will effectively blacklist the company from any major sports deal, with the NFL or anyone else. So the stakes are high to deliver.

The stakes are also high to see if Yahoo can make any money from the adventure. It will invest considerable sums in marketing and promotion for the event and will have paid the NFL a hefty sum for the privilege. Yahoo will need to demonstrate to shareholders that it can operate such an event at something that is close to economically viable. While its not likely to make a profit, given its the first one, it will still need to show meaningful results.

The league first began shopping the rights to the game in February and reached out to big internet companies including Google, Apple and Amazon before clinching the deal with Yahoo, according to Sports Business Journal.

Which means Yahoo, the least funded of all those rivals, likely paid through the nose. Google’s YouTube in particular was rumored to be well into the bidding, but being a Google company was not willing to be a loss-leader on the adventure, instead calculating its bid based on its vast store of advertising data.

“Through this partnership with Yahoo — one of the world’s most recognizable digital brands — we are taking another important step in that direction as we continue to closely monitor the rapidly evolving digital media landscape,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a media release.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer added, “We’re thrilled that the NFL has chosen Yahoo for this historic opportunity. It marks a significant change in the way users can access this amazing content.”

But the game isn’t a web exclusive, rather the NFL will make the game available in local markets via CBS affiliates. Given the two are low popularity teams, the move significantly handicaps the viewership for the event, as for most in the local markets it will be business as usual, with not need to hit the web.

While its a very missable test for the NFL, who will face little consequence if the broadcast isn’t a success, it could be argued the event is life or death for Yahoo – and perhaps CEO Marissa Mayer.

ISIS Announces Plans To Expand Into Africa

The threat from ISIS is gathering momentum as it is increasingly using its new found wealth to expand into foreign territories. While it already has an alliance with Nigerian terror group Boko Haram, the group is looking to make an even bigger push into Arica, where relatively weak governance and even weaker military forces mean easy battles and quick land grabs, similar to its strategy in the middle east.

Its latest target in Africa is Tunisia, one of the biggest exporters of fighters to ISIS, which has sent over 3,000 jihadists into the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.

In social-media savvy ISIS style, members published a “teaser” titled “Soon, Soon” on radical Islam forums that promises another video by an unknown group called “ISIS Tunisia Province.”

The teaser footage shows ISIS members watching Tunisian soldiers and filming them with a hidden camera from inside a car. ISIS affiliates in other places quickly began gossiping that the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior had asked Twitter for information about the identity of those who uploaded the video. This prompted ISIS to issue a warning to use security when interacting with the social media platform.

An ISIS presence in North Africa would come in addition to running half of Syria and Iraq, chunks of territory in Libya and Yemen, and smaller areas in Egypt and Algeria. It rules these areas with military commanders and provides civil services to the population.

It also engages in rape, via forced marriages and recently announced plans to forcibly sexually assault over 2 million Iraqi girls.

ISIS only previous link to Tunisia was last year’s attack on the Bardo Museum, in which 21 people, including 18 tourists, were killed.

Google Secretly Storing All Your ‘OK Google’ Voice Commands

Google doesn’t have a good reputation for protecting user privacy so, while disturbing, it should come as no surprise that a free service from Mountain View abuses what little you have left.

It was discovered on Wednesday that every time you speak to your smartphone, saying “OK Google…” or tapped the microphone to dictate a text message, Google has been keeping logs of your every word.

In the classic ‘no, its not bad its a great feature’ style of Google, you can play back your own recordings, as if this somehow makes it all better.

The news can after Google launched its “My Account” feature, a Facebook-style ‘tool’ to make privacy more confusing and difficult.

While its long been known that Google remembers every text search you perform on its site, we’ve now learned that it also stores a recording of your actual voice.

While the purpose, at least right now, is ostensibly to help it better recognize your voice, it remains to be seen what Google will do with these recordings. It could easily sell them on to advertisers, who could then make a voice-print of you and do all sorts of creepy ad serving with the information.

The collection of recordings appear in a section of your Google account called “Voice and Audio Activity.”

It is not clear how long Google keeps the recordings or if other copies exist somewhere else at Google, but users can manually delete the recordings if they prefer.

The fact remains, however, that most people will not delete them and won’t truly know they exist, thanks to being buried in a control panel with lots of other toggles and settings. This approach to confusing users about privacy was first used by Facebook, who can now claim they offer users the choice of privacy, one tiny little setting a time.

For users, the net effect when presented with a confusing set of toggles, of which they don’t know much about, is to leave things as the big internet companies want them.

Apple Suffers Rare Failure As It Recalls Beats Speakers Over Fire, Burn Concerns

It isn’t often that Apple, the world’s most valuable company, makes a mistake. But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday after it was forced to recall its Beats Pill XL speaker after a number of reports of overheating and a case in which a customer suffered a minor burn.

The Chinese manufactured speaker retails for a whopping $325 and now poses a potential fire hazard due to a faulty battery.

Apple promised a full refund to any U.S. or Canadian customers who return the item.

It will accept returns at either its retail stores or provide postage-paid boxes for consumers to send their defective speakers back to the company.

The issue affects a massive 233,000 units sold in North America through Apple’s retail and online stores and via Beatsbydre.com. The units would have been purchased between January 2014 to the present date.

The U.S. consumer product safety commission released the following statement:

This recall involves all Beats Pill XL portable, wireless speakers. The recalled products are plastic, capsule-shaped speakers about 4 inches tall by 13 inches wide by 4 inches deep with a plastic mesh grille on the front and a built-in carrying handle to the rear.

The small “b” Beats logo is on the grille and “beatspillXL” is on the handle. The speakers come in five colours: black, white, pink, metallic sky and titanium.

Apple acquired Beats from popular rapper Dr Dre in 2014 for $3 billion.

The company said in a statement that customer safety was its “top priority” and asked Apple fans “to stop using their Beats Pill XL speakers.”

The cost of the error could amount to $120 million and is a rare case in which Apple doesn’t get it right.

Anti Vaccination Movement Leads To Return Of Diphtheria In Spain

Government health officials are becoming increasingly concerned about the rise of the anti-vaccination movement, which withholds much needed vaccinations to deadly diseases on the grounds the shots are more harmful to children than the diseases themselves.

This issue is contentious, with Australia recently banning people from the healthcare system who do not receive the free shots.

This looks to be a smart policy, as confirmed by a six-year-old child from Spain that has been admitted to hospital with the first recorded case of diphtheria in the country since 1986.

The little boy had not been received vaccinations against the infectious disease, despite the free vaccination programs offered by Spanish public health services.

EL PAÍS, a Spanish news agency, confirmed the boy had not been vaccinated because his parents are against the practice.

The disease is deadly and the child is currently in the intensive care unit, where he is being treated with an anti-toxin. Yet because the disease is now so rare, thanks to vaccines, the Health Ministry had to search for the anti-toxin worldwide. Some was finally sourced from Russia, where the Russian ambassador flew to Spain to personally give the country the much needed drug.

“The problem is that these days, no one has this illness. Everyone is vaccinated,” Rubén Moreno, the general secretary for the health service, told EL PAÍS.

Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which is most likely to affect children under five and adults over 60. It spreads via direct contact or through the air, and causes severe respiratory problems.

One out of every 10 patients dies from the early symptoms

In light of this, general secretary Moreno, called these campaigns “irresponsible.” He continued: “The consequences of not vaccinating a child can be dramatic. The right to vaccination is for children, not for the parents to decide.”

Pinterest Is Going To Crush All Other Social Networks In Profitability

Social networks are not known to make money. While Facebook makes some money, its mostly via accounting tricks and a unique growth cycle rather than cold hard cash. Ill-fated Myspace and undermonetized Twitter all have the same issue. People come for the party and ignore the ads.

But hot rival Pinterest looks set to crush them both.

The company, known for photo sharing home decor designs, hot gadgets and the latest fashion is going to become an e-commerce platform. Or rather e-commerce heavyweight.

Later this month the company will launch “buyable pins,” for its iOS app that will allow Pinterest users to complete product purchases without ever leaving the company’s app.

For anyone who has ever used pinterest, this solves a huge problem: Buying the item that looks so amazing.

Prior to this, users relied on other users to link back to the original catalog item. That’s time consuming and erratic. It also doesn’t make Pinterest any money.

In the new system, a new blue “buy this” button will appear next to the familiar “pin it” button.

Once a user clicks the button, they can either use their credit card or Apple Pay to complete the purchase.

The implications are massive. With over 73 million users and over 50 billion posts, nearly all of them products, the company will become the world’s largest e-commerce catalog.

While other social networks spam you with ads that are sold for pathetically low rates, all while invading your privacy, Pinterest’s solution to making money is elegant, user friendly and highly profitable.

The company’s initial retail partners in the United States include Macy’s, Nordstorm and Neiman Marcus, and will see more than 2 million items available to purchase at launch.

The move will put it in direct competition with e-commerce heavyweights Amazon, Ebay and Alibaba. It will be interesting to see if any of these companies attempt to buy Pinterest before the new strategy takes off.

If they don’t, they’re going to have to pay a huge premium once the numbers start hitting the financial statements because this addition is going to be absolutely massive.

Despite $35 Billion Crime Spree Head Of JP Morgan Is Now A Billionaire And Not In Jail

For common folks crime doesn’t pay, but if you’re the head of a too-big-to-fail criminal racket known as a bank, in this case JP Morgan, it certainly does. And quite handsomely.

Bloomberg, which tracks those with a net worth over $1 billion, added Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase & Co., to its rich list with a net worth of about $1.1 billion.

Dimon’s fortune derives from presiding over the bank as it committed a crime spree for the ages and was bailed out for taking excessive risks with the money of main street Americans.

To recap, here’s a list of the crimes committed under his leadership:

  • Misleading CDO Investments, $153.6 million, Settled on 6/21/2011
  • Anticompetitive Conduct in Municipal Bonds, $228 million, Settled on 7/7/2011
  • Foreclosure Abuses and “Robo-Signing”, Settled on $5.29 billion, 2/9/2012
  • More Mortgage Misrepresentation, Settled on $269.9 million, 11/16/2012
  • Improper Foreclosures Pt. 2, Settled on $1.8 billion, 1/1/2013
  • Electricity Trading Scandal, Settled on $410 million, 7/30/2013
  • Illegal Credit Card Practices, Settled on $389 million, 9/19/2013
  • The London Whale, $920 million, Settled on 9/19/2013
  • The Fannie and Freddie Fines, $5.1 billion, Settled on 10/25/2013
  • Institutional Mortgage Securities, $4.5 billion, Settled on 11/15/2013
  • Misleading “Toxic Mortgages”, $13 billion, Settled on 11/19/2013
  • Libor Rigging Scandal, $108 million, Settled on 12/4/2013
  • Madoff Retribution, $1.7 billion, Settled on 1/6/2014
  • Currency Manipulation, $1.34 Billion, Settled on 11/21/2014
  • Total fines over three years: $35,241,500,000

    Total bailouts since 2008: $25,000,000,000

    Jamie Dimon Net Worth: $1,100,000,000

    It’s worth noting that these fines understate the magnitude of the crimes as the company pays less in fines than it made off the criminal acts.

    All of which begs the questions:

    How has this man been allowed to get this rich instead of going to jail?

    And

    Why is JP Morgan not deemed to be a criminal enterprise?

    British Student Union Votes To Boycott Israel Over Palestinian Genocide

    Despite Israel’s massive propaganda efforts across global media outlets, the world is starting to take notice of the appalling atrocities the state is committing against Palestinians, in what has become an act of genocide.

    The latest indicator that the world is taking a tougher stance on the country, is that the UK’s National Union of Students passed a motion Tuesday to join worldwide efforts to boycott Israel over violations of Palestinian human rights.

    The motion aligns the union with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which Israel so violently opposes that it started doxing U.S. student activists in an attempt to stop them from getting jobs upon graduation.

    The NUC’s Executive Council passed the “Justice for Palestine” motion, with 19 members voting in favor, 12 against and three abstaining.

    In addition to the boycott, the motion also called on the British Parliament to stop arms sales to Israel.

    The NUC is the UK’s umbrella student organization, representing over 600 higher education institutions and 7 million students.

    The bill “condemns Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza,” and calls on students to “co-ordinate a nationwide student day of action to commemorate UN Palestine Solidarity Day on 29 November,” according to media releases.

    While an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the measure had “little practical implications”, the Israeli government is taking both the vote and the BDS movement seriously. The movement seeks to cut off financing for Israel, which is a serious threat given it relies heavily on international trade and investment given the small state has little natural resources.

    Yet Israeli money is tough for western countries to ignore and given Israel is also a key ally of western government in their war against radical Islam and militant Arab states, the west seems perfectly fine with allowing the genocide to continue so long as Israel remains a reliable ally in the region.

    Highlighting this willingness to turn a blind eye, deputy British ambassador to Israel, Dr. Rob Dixon, said: “We are deeply committed to promoting the UK’s trade and business ties with Israel, as part the flourishing partnership between the two countries.”

    While the U.N. has unequivocally condemned the genocide, the attitude of the world’s leaders is clear: At the end of the day, money trumps human rights.

    FBI Is Investigating Disgraced FIFA President Blatter For Bribery

    The FIFA soccer scandal continues to widen as reports surfaced late Tuesday that the FBI and U.S. prosecutors are investigating Sepp Blatter, who announced his resignation on Tuesday, as part of a wide ranging probe into the corrupt world soccer body’s conduct.

    While the FBI declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing, ABC News reported that investigators were hoping to use those indicted to provide specific information that could lead to charges against senior executives including Mr. Blatter. The tactic has been successfully used by federal agents in mob racketeering cases.

    U.S. authorities last week indicted 14 people — nine football officials and five sports-marketing executives — who face charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering. They are accused of accepting more than $150 million in bribes.

    “Now that people are going to want to save themselves, there’s probably a race to see who will flip on [Blatter] first,” one of the sources stated.

    “We may not be able to collapse the whole organisation, but maybe you don’t need to,” another of the sources said.

    Curiously, a report by E:60’s Jeremy Schaap found no record of Blatter having entered the U.S. since 2011. Criminals will often avoid passing through the U.S. if they have reason to believe they are under investigation, as they could be arrested and detained until the matter is resolved because of flight risk.

    Last week’s indictments charged 14 with corruption, bribery and racketeering. The charges are significant as the defendants could face lengthy jail terms for the serious offenses.

    Norway Launches World’s First Bumble Bee Highway

    While it may seem like a cute story, the world’s bee population is a pressing issue. World bee populations are declining at a rapid pace which has huge knock-on effects for commercial farming. Without bees crops don’t get pollinated and food doesn’t grow. As the world’s population expands and needs to be fed, bee populations are becoming the weak link in the food chain.

    In Norway, they’re taking the threat seriously, as the city of Oslo announced the world’s first ‘bumble bee highway’ on Wednesday. The highway is a corridor through the city’s pollen stations every 700 feet.

    “The idea is to create a route through the city with enough feeding stations for the bumblebees all the way,” Tonje Waaktaar Gamst of the Oslo Garden Society told a local newspaper. ”Enough food will also help the bumblebees withstand man made environmental stress better.”

    Bumblebees and other pollinating insects do not fair well in urban environments because there are few flowers rich in nectar, which means they starve.

    To encourage a healthy bee population, Gams and his team placed flowerpots on rooftops and balconies along a route from east to west through the city, paving a path for the bees.

    During the last few years, similar to the United States, many bee colonies have been dying out, causing damage to critical agriculture that depends on the insects.

    While Norway hasn’t been as hard hit as the US, six out of 35 Norwegian bumblebee species are on the verge of extinction.

    The Oslo effort combines city managers, environmental organizations, the public, and and companies, who are helping to plant bumblebee friendly flowers on their property.

    To help the insects clearly find the path, they’ve formed an organization called BiBy (Bee Town) which launched an app that shows the public “grey areas”, which are long stretches with no food for bees, to encourage planting flowers in areas where food sources are low.

    “It will be easy to see barriers and obstacles on the map. The goal is to inspire people to fill these gaps.” said Agnes Lyche Melvær of BiBy.

    The Norwegian model could serve as a template for other cities, particularly in the United States, to encourage bee population growth.

    South Korea Tests Powerful New Missile In Latest Sign Its Growing Tired Of Its Erratic Neighbor

    North Korea isn’t the only one with missiles on the Korean peninsula. South Korea on Wednesday tested a new ballistic missile that can hit all of North Korea, developed under a new agreement with the United States that lets the South extend the weapon’s range to 500 miles.

    In the latest sign that South Korea is fed up with coddling its bellicose neighbor, president Park Geun-hye made a rare visit to a missile base to watch the launch of the guided missile. The new weapons system will play a key role in the South’s defense against its neighbor’s nuclear and missile threat, her office stated.

    “The test demonstrated improved ballistic missile capability that can strike all parts of North Korea swiftly, and with precision, in the event of armed aggression or provocation,” the president’s office said in a statement.

    The test comes after North Korea claimed it test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile though most experts and U.S. military leaders doubted the authenticity of the North’s claim.

    The new South Korean missile was developed under a new agreement with the United States, signed in 2012, to more than double the range of the South’s missiles in order to overcome its disadvantage with Pyongyang’s missile capabilities.

    South Korea has historically been a pacifist nation, going out of its way to befriend its hostile neighbor and not escalate tensions. With this policy the South had purposely not developed missile or weapons systems that would provoke the North and trigger an arms race.

    The North Korea’s insistence on increased militarization, bellicose rhetoric and provocative actions have led to popular opinion in South Korea changing, favoring a more aggressive stance towards its neighbor.

    The North has a wide array of missiles and is thought to be developing an intercontinental ballistic missile armed with nuclear weapons.

    North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket in 2012, putting what it claimed was a satellite into orbit. While the North called it a space launch vehicle, the launch was viewed as a thinly veiled test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and led to stiff sanctions.

    ISIS Is One Of Social Media’s Top Spammers

    Terrorist group ISIS is known for their heavy use of propaganda, especially the use of social media to distribute their sickening videos and fanciful ideas.

    But the end result is the recruitment of impressionable young minds, lured into their dark world by empty promises of freedom and a worthy cause.

    France revealed alarming figures on Tuesday the show exactly why French authorities are taking the war against online jihadist networks so seriously.

    Newspaper Le Monde found that there are over 2,600 websites in French run by backers of ISIS, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Defense.

    ISIS propaganda cells also produce a stunning 40,000 tweets in French each day. That’s a significant amount of reach on a platform with a young and impressionable user base. Especially when considering that the ISIS linked accounts have over 2.8 million Francophone followers.

    While France’s response has been considered slow, last week Prime Minister Manuel Valls revealed details of how the French will combat the propaganda machine.

    France would be hiring hackers and also online “community managers” to more closely monitor the extremists, Valls revealed.

    The hackers would be in charge of monitoring the jihadists online and trying to identify them, allowing police to intercept before they had the chance to covert France’s youth.

    The interior minister has also blocked 36 illegal websites in recent months, which have in some way promoted jihadism.

    The government also took the step of releasing a shocking video campaign earlier this year in the hope of dissuading more young French nationals from heading to the Middle East.

    It’s not surprising that France is taking the jihadist recruitment seriously.

    The measures come after it was revealed recently that 45 teenage French girls are waging jihad in the Middle East, while there has been a 203 percent rise in the number of its nationals heading to the region.

    Apple CEO Comes Out Swinging Against FBI Plan To Spy Of Civilians

    The FBI has NSA envy. While the NSA gets all the hot new tools to hack iPhones, Androids and all your favorite social media accounts, the FBI has been left to do regular old police work. This means it has to do pesky things like get warrants, justify itself to judges and perform actual surveillance.

    But that requires work and why do work when you can be lazy?

    So the FBI has gone on a campaign to erode your privacy rights to make its job far easier. It’s started its own air force that circles the country eavesdropping indiscriminately. It’s got a scary new law passed that allows it to hack suspects all across the country with very little oversight.

    And its now pushing to have secret keys implanted in modern encryption software so that it can easily tap into your text messages and emails.

    This dangerous plan, which basically subverts the whole purpose of encryption – to be private, has been called out by a variety of tech companies and privacy advocates as lazy policing.

    The latest, and most high profile, voice to join the opposition to this terrible idea is Apple CEO Tim Cook, who emphasized the need for strong encryption in a speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday night.

    Cook singled out campaign led by FBI director James Comey to require adding intentional weaknesses in the encryption code for law enforcement to encryption technology, such as the encryption used in Apple’s iPhone devices.

    Cook said that adding encryption backdoors for the FBI would weaken the security of all devices and “is incredibly dangerous.”

    The audience at the Electronic Privacy Information Center awards dinner responded warmly to Cook’s words.

    “So let me be crystal clear: Weakening encryption or taking it away harms good people who are using it for the right reason,” he said.

    Cook isn’t the only one fighting the government in the new crypto war. Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas), both members of the Information Technology Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, are also opposed to such measures.

    The pair sent a letter to Comey on Monday which echoed many of Cook’s points.

    They highlighted three reasons for opposing the measure:

    First, forcing American companies to weaken encryption would fundamentally change the relationship between government, the private sector, and citizens for the worse. It would be impossible to trust any American tech company to protect privacy in this scenario.

    Second, if backdoors are created for law enforcement could be accessed by hackers. “It is important to remember that computer code and encryption algorithms are neutral and have no idea if they’re being accessed by an FBI agent, a terrorist, or a hacker,” the letter stated.

    Third, any and all mandatory backdoors can easily be circumvented by avoiding American-made products. This would put American industry at a fundamental disadvantage.

    The arguments against are logical and well reasoned. The arguments for such measures are just lazy policing. With over 700 new hires coming on board its time the FBI got in shape instead of relying on the erosion of our hard won freedoms to do their job.

    Indiana Starts Needle Exchanges To Fight Raging HIV Outbreak

    “Anybody need clean needles today?” isn’t exactly what you’d expect to hear shouted from a car in rural Indiana but its a phrase that’s increasingly heard as the state struggles to combat a raging HIV outbreak linked to drug use and needle sharing.

    Scott County, one of the hardest hit areas, is now running a mobile needle exchange unit, part of the county’s emergency response to the largest HIV outbreak in Indiana’s history. To date more than 160 people have tested positive since December and authorities believe there may be double or triple the number lurking in untested patients.

    By giving injection drug users access to clean needles, the spread of disease can be interrupted. It’s a proven strategy, that has been used successfully in Canada, England and Australia though such projects, even with proven results, tend to be shunned by politicians because of easy, factless, rhetorical attacks on them.

    In Indiana’s case there is little choice – its either become the HIV capital of America or take proven health strategies to stop the spread of the deadly disease. So far the program has been running a storefront and a mobile program on a temporary basis since early April, while last week the state approved the county’s request to extend it for a full year.

    Yet it took until April of this year for Indiana’s politicians to come around, as they were outright banned prior to this, and even now individual counties still must seek approval from the state to operate one.

    In Scott County the program started off slow with only four people coming by the first week. But now more than 170 people have signed up, and each day they trade in hundreds of used needles for clean ones.

    It’s clear that the program is reducing harm and making the community safer.

    Politicians across the country, not just Indiana, need to look at the research, which shows that needle exchanges curb the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV.

    If needle exchanges were fully allowed across every state and city in America, thousands of lives would be saved each year.

    So why aren’t we doing this? Politics. Plain and simple.

    NASA To Test Mars Bound Flying Saucer Thursday

    The United States has a rich history of flying saucers, not just from UFO reports, but actual experimental planes that flew, or rather hovered, in the 1950s.

    While those planes didn’t work out so well, NASA has been busy with a flying saucer concept of its own. That concept will actually fly on Thursday.

    The agency is testing something called the low-density supersonic decelerator (LDSD), better known as a flying saucer, because that’s just what it looks like.

    The purpose of the futuristic (or retro) looking LDSD is to test bigger and stronger parachutes which we’ll need to safely land a spacecraft on future missions to Mars.

    After yesterday’s launch from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, was scrapped because waves were too high to successfully recover the LDSD when it returns to Earth. The launch is planned for around 1:30 pm eastern time June 3rd.

    The LDSD is an important step toward a successful Mars mission. It also marks NASA continuing to push American innovation forward, after years of being starved of funds and attention.

    Because Mars has a thin atmosphere, the kind of parachutes we use on Earth aren’t enough slow down a spacecraft for a safe landing. While a manned mission to Mars is still a ways off, the LDSD’s technology will probably be used to improve parachute technology for the next rover that will be sent to Mars. Each of the previous martian rovers have used the same parachute design first invented in 1976.

    The LDSD’s parachute system actually consists of three devices.

    The first two are called the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (SIADs), which inflate as the spacecraft reaches Mars, increasing the surface area, creating drag, which slows it down.

    Then there’s the Supersonic Ringsail parachute, a massive 100-foot diameter rig, to compensate for Mars’ thin air.

    This combination system will increase the weight a spacecraft can be for a safe Mars landing from 3,300 pounds to between 4,400 and 6,600 pounds. It should also improve landing accuracy from within six miles to within two. For rovers this accuracy isn’t a huge factor but in a human mission accuracy could be the difference between life and death.

    For viewers who want to see the test live, with cool camera angles all over the spacecraft, tune into the NASA stream, here, around Noon Thursday.

    Update: NASA has again posponed the test, this time until Thursday, June 4th around noon

    Facebook Owned Instagram To Be Covered In Ads

    When a tech billionaire buys a product that is ad free and all about the users its usually a sign that things will change in the very near future.

    True to form, serial privacy invader Facebook has confirmed plans to cram its photo filter app Instagram full of ads, according to a blog post on Tuesday.

    Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for roughly $715 million. Since doing so, the company has put a small number of ads into the product.

    But ads will be small no more, as businesses of all sizes will soon be able to buy ads directly, in a push to make the photo sharing app profitable.

    Instagram’s ad’s will be “native” in design and will allegedly be an unobtrusive addition to the photo-sharing service.

    Except, of course, the whole privacy thing. The more ads get shown and the more elaborate the ad platform becomes, the less privacy users have. Given Instagram is an app, and its owned by Facebook, it has a vast amount of data about you, which will now happily be shared with advertisers of all sorts.

    For the 300 million or so people who share their pics on Instagram this means advertisers can target you “based on demographics and interests”.

    In other words your habits, location, stage of life, relationship status and other creepy data will be heavily tracked and sold by the new ad businesses.

    But Facebook, of course, thinks this is all sunshine and lollipops:

    There are more than two million advertisers who actively use Facebook to market their business and we want to leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing and measuring the success of ads on Instagram.

    We will start by opening the Instagram Ads API to a select group of Facebook Marketing Partners and agencies, and we plan to expand globally throughout the year.

    Don’t be fooled though. The entire world will very shortly be able to buy your data in order to target you with ads.

    Which is a good reminder that if a product from Silicon Valley is free, it isn’t actually the product.

    You, and your personal information, are the product.

    Dairy Giant Bans Milk From Suppliers Who Mistreat Cows

    People are increasingly demanding accountability from animal producers regarding what animals are fed and how they’re raised. Big corporations, who have traditionally turned a blind eye to such concerns, are increasingly taking notice.

    Global dairy giant Saputo, based in Canada, announced on Tuesday that it will no longer buy milk from farmers who mistreat their animals.

    The company, which is one of the largest dairy processors in the world, unveiled its new policy Tuesday in the wake of an undercover video released last year that showed employees of one of its suppliers viciously beating cattle.

    The footage, released by Mercy for Animals, led to eight employees of the Chilliwack Cattle Company to be fired.

    “Saputo has zero tolerance for any act of animal cruelty,” the company said “This includes, but is not limited to, willful mistreatment and neglect of animals and acts that maliciously cause pain, injury or suffering. We expect all dairy cattle workers (employers and employees) to adopt and adhere to proper animal care and handling methods at all times.”

    Saputo will now require suppliers to adhere to a code of conduct, renewed each year, and train employees in animal welfare. It also “wants to change” two widespread industry practices: Tail docking and dehorning cattle without pain control.

    It was unclear on Tuesday whether or when the company will completely eliminate the two mentioned practices.

    If “credible evidence” of animal cruelty emerges the supplier will be suspended and then need to follow strict criteria to be reinstated.

    Mercy for Animals praised Saputo’s announcement and curged other large dairy companies to follow suit.

    “It’s never been clearer that the days are numbered for dairy factory farms that beat and drag cows, and mutilate them without painkillers,” the organization said in a statement Tuesday.

    In an age of social media bad news spreads quickly. Successful companies are taking notice of this and increasingly implementing policies to stop such news from surfacing, in-line with the expectations of their consumers for what is deemed ‘bad’.

    California Proposes Tough New Pipeline Standards After Santa Barbara Spill

    It seems California doesn’t trust big oil companies which perhaps has something to do with the massive spill late last month onto Santa Barbara’s pristine Refugio State Beach. In addition to being a big spill, the pipeline company was slow to react, slow to alert authorities and then lowballed the estimates until it was proven, as we covered here and here, that the spill was far worse than thought.

    Two lawmakers from Santa Barbara County on Tuesday proposed legislation that would require annual inspections, quicker responses, better technology and another attempt to bar oil drilling in environmentally sensitive portions of the coast.

    Four bills will be introduced by State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) and Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara).

    “It has reminded us of just how precious our coastline and our wildlife are and how vulnerable we are to oil spills,” Jackson told reporters during a conference call.

    Jackson was particularly concerned upon learning that the pipeline that broke had not been inspected for at least two years. The new measures would stipulate annual inspections. “We know that the pipeline that ruptured was not inspected frequently enough and that if it had problems [the spill] might have been prevented,” she said.

    To address the six hours it took for the state to respond to the leak, the legislation will require two large oil skimming devices to be positioned along the Santa Barbara County coast and would allow local commercial fishermen to be immediately deputized to help respond to such disasters.

    A further bill will put a moratorium on the use of dispersants, chemicals which are widely regarded as “toxic and ineffective,’’ until the U.S. EPA completes their study on the chemicals.

    The senator and her colleagues also will push legislation for a Senate vote this Wednesday to ban offshore oil drilling in sensitive areas of northern Santa Barbara County. A similar bill did not get support last year in the Legislature amid strong oil industry opposition. The political climate may now be more favorable to pass such legislation.

    Assemblyman Williams, noting the ruptured pipeline did not have an automatic shutoff valve, said he will introduce legislation to require pipeline companies to use the best technology available in environmentally sensitive areas.

    “I’m deeply saddened and angered to see one of California’s most beloved beaches and campgrounds closed,” he said.

    Overall it appears, like many oil spills, that the situation was entirely preventable but was not stopped because of cost control measures which resulted in lax safety standards.

    As America considers large pipelines like Keystone XL, the legislation may serve as a framework for how pipelines must be operated, at least in environmentally sensitive areas.

    Embattled World Soccer President Resigns In Shame After Latest Revelations

    Sepp Blatter, head of corrupt world soccer body FIFA, announced he will step down as head of the governing body but only after a fresh vote “for the election of my successor,” he said Tuesday.

    The announcement comes after fresh allegations this morning that the FIFA president was deeply involved in the bribery scandal that resulted in over a dozen charges against FIFA members. Tuesday’s reports detail how his right hand man, Jerome Valcke, sent a $10 million payment to Jack Warner, who has been charged for his involvment in the bribery.

    Prior to today, Blatter, who was just re-elected last Friday, had distanced himself from the allegations. Today’s evidence indicates otherwise.

    Blatter did not say when the election would be held but said it that it would happen before the next World Congress in May 2016

    “I have thoroughly thought about my presidency and the 40 years FIFA has played in my life. I love FIFA more than anything else and I only want to do the best. I decided to stand again for election for the good of football,” he said.

    However, he went on to say that his “mandate does not appear to be supported by everybody.”

    Iran Jails Cartoon Drawer For 12 Years Just Days After Holding Cartoon Drawing Contest

    Don’t let Iran’s art takeovers or cartoon drawing contests fool you: Its still a fanatically religious country where oppression and human rights abuses are the norm.

    The latest news out of Iran confirms this as it was revealed Tuesday that an Iranian artist was sentenced to over 12 years in prison for drawing a cartoon criticizing members of parliament over their decision to restrict birth control for women.

    Atena Farghadani, 28, had a sham Iranian trial in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on May 19th and learned on Monday of the verdict and harsh sentence for “insulting members of parliament through paintings” for drawing the officials as animals, according to Amnesty International.

    The family plans to appeal, though sentence, due to quirky Iranian law, will only last a little over seven and a half years.

    “Naturally we are all upset by the sentence,” said a family member. “But seeing how optimistic Atena has been, we are trying to maintain that outlook, too.”

    “She’s truly an angel,” a relative said, anonymously, for fear of government reprisals. “She just loves people and animals, and besides for all her artistic talent, she is such a strong supporter of human rights.”

    “I hope Atena’s case is a wake up call for the international community and that they put the human rights on top of the agenda in their dialogue with the Iranian authorities.” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam of group Iran Human Rights.

    In addition to the ridiculously harsh sentence, Farghadani’s family has been threatened. It is “just another way of putting pressure on Atena and making sure no one speaks to the media” Amiry-Moghaddam said.

    “It’s crazy to think her name spread as a result of a cartoon, because she has done so many wonderful things to help humanity, doing things quietly and not wanting credit,” he said.

    Farghadani has been in prison since last August, when the Revolutionary Guards raided her home and blindfolded her, confiscated her personal items and then imprisoned her, according to Amnesty International.

    Farghadani posted an open letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to her Facebook page stating:

    “What you call an “insult to representatives of the parliament by means of cartoons” I consider to be an artistic expression of the home of our nation (parliament), which our nation does not deserve! I, therefore, must pay retribution for defending my beloved defenseless people.”

    She has since been held in solitary confinement, a method the United Nations views as torture, at Tehran’s Evin prison, where she was hospitalized in February after going on a three week hunger strike and suffered a heart attack.

    Farghadani’s family visits the prison weekly, the family member said.

    “Atena is a prisoner of conscience – she has committed no real crime,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “She is being unfairly punished simply for exercising her right to free speech, association and assembly. We’ve been calling on Iran’s Supreme Leader and Head of the Judiciary to release Atena immediately. If not, we’ll continue to fight for her freedom.”

    Judge Abolghassem Salavati, the judge overseeing her case, is known as “Iran’s hanging judge” or the “judge of death” for handing out hundreds of death penalty sentences, particularly against journalists, bloggers, artists and political activists.

    So while Iran puts out slick propaganda showing it holding cartoon drawing contests against ISIS or filling Tehran with works of art, the reality is that it is run by religious fanaticals who do not believe in human rights or the rule of law.

    ISIS Declares War On Palestine, Kills Top Hamas Commander

    The Islamic State (ISIS) seems to want war with everyone, everywhere as militants announced they have assassinated a top Hamas commander by blowing up his car. They went on to declare war on Palestine and threaten genocide against the Palestinian people.

    Hamas’ senior commander Saber Siam was killed on Sunday after ISIS loyalists placed a bomb in his vehicle.

    ISIS militants said in a statement that Siam was killed because he was “a partner in a declared war against religion and against Muslims, working for the heretical government in Gaza,” according to Israeli reports.

    The attack was conducted by ISIS-affiliated Salafist rebels who have also warned local residents to stay away from Hamas offices and buildings as it plans to carry out more attacks.

    The conflict between Hamas and ISIS in Gaza started when Palestinian forces demolished a makeshift mosque used by Ansar al-Bayt al-Maqdis in early May.

    Ansar al-Bayt al-Maqdis is an Egyptian Islamist group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS and has been recruiting Palestinians for the Islamic State.

    After demolishing the Almtahabin mosque, Hamas then arrested seven men, including a local Salafist Sheikh Yasser Abu Houli.

    ISIS claims it will kill Hamas personnel “one by one” and that it knows the names and addresses of all the officers working for the Palestinian Intelligence agency.

    Google Can Now Count The Calories Of Your Food Porn

    Google continues to push hard into the realm of artificial intelligence, with its Google Now service increasingly offering predictive alerts based where you are and what you’re doing.

    Its latest project, yet to be released, looks to calculate the calories on your Instagram posts, which it announced at the Rework Deep Learning Summit.

    The tool, called Im2Calories, will identify food in pictures and then calculate the calorie content.

    Google researcher Kevin P Murphy says the AI technology an images pixel depth and use “sophisticated deep-learning algorithms” to judge both the size and shape of the food.

    According to Popular Science, the company has recently filed a patent for the technology.

    “To me it’s obvious that people really want this and this is really useful. OK fine, maybe we get the calories off by 20%. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to average over a week or a month or a year.

    Now we can start to potentially join information from multiple people and start to do population-level statistics. I have colleagues in epidemiology and public health, and they really want this stuff,” said Murphy.

    While the research is still ongoing, such a tool could become a feature of Google’s newly launched Photos app. The goal of that app is to replace Facebook and Instagram as the go-to spot to store pictures. The service offers free, basically unlimited, storage of high resolution photos, making it a natural fit for analysis tools like Im2Calories.

    Teens Pursuing Healthier Habits After Searching The Web

    New research shows that parents’ fears about their teens and the internet may be well overblown. Many are actually switching to healthier habits after consulting the Web.

    The new study, the first in more than a decade to examine how teens use online tools for health information, almost one third of teenagers said they used online tools to improve behavior, like cutting back on drinking soda, using exercise to fight depression and trying healthier recipes.

    The study was released Tuesday by researchers at Northwestern University.

    The study debunks the myth of “all the negative things kids are doing online,” while highlighting the importance of making sure there is accurate, and easily reachable information available to teens, “because it’s used and acted upon,” said Ellen Wartella, lead author of the report.

    Teens, nearly one-quarter of them, also look for information on health conditions affecting friends or family. Yet a surprising 88 percent said they did not feel comfortable sharing their health concerns with friends on Facebook or other social media, which shows the issues are deeply personal.

    “I mainly find it kind of moving, because it really illustrates that a lot of teens are grappling with very real, very important health challenges and that the Internet is empowering them with the information they need to take better care of themselves,” said Vicky Rideout, an author of the study.

    While the internet is quickly becoming a vital tool, parents are still the leading source of health information, with 55 percent of teens saying they got “a lot” of health information from parents.

    While not surprising that teens rely on their parents for health information what is surprising is that only a small number, 13 percent, said they turned to the Internet because they couldn’t talk to a parent.

    “The Internet is not replacing parents, teachers, and doctors; it is supplementing them,” the researchers wrote.

    The conclusion fits with what retailers and media companies are seeing: Consumers are using smartphones and the internet to augment traditional channel, such as in-store retail or television, not replace it.

    More devices mean more crosschecking and referencing, not fully replacing traditional sources.

    U.S. Planes Flying In Circles Rather Than Bombing ISIS

    The U.S. response to ISIS has been underwhelming, as while the threat was forecast by Pentagon officials since 2012, the U.S. has still not committed significant military forces to curbing what could be the worst humanitarian crisis since the Holocaust.

    While the U.S. has reportedly been conducting limited air strikes, Iraq’s former national security adviser said on Tuesday that most U.S. fighter jets deployed to bomb terrorists in the Arab country return to their bases without dropping any bombs.

    Mowaffak al-Rubaie sharply criticized the U.S.-led airstrikes against ISIS as ineffective.

    “From where I sit in Baghdad,” said Rubaie, “eight out of each 10” aircraft loaded with ammunition return to their bases without striking their targets.

    “Only two out of ten strike their targets in Iraq,” he said in an interview.

    “I think the United States government needs and should and ought to do a lot more,” in Iraq, he went on to say.

    The United States and dozens of allies have been launching airstrikes against the ISIS targets in Iraq since August. The raids have also included Syria since September.

    Yet the terror group is now stronger than ever, having recently captured a variety of key cities in both Syria and Iraq.

    North Korea Wants Two Million Tourists To Visit

    North Korea has a bit of an image problem. Between starving its people, publicly executing officials with anti-aircraft guns and its nuclear ambitions, the hermit kingdom isn’t the kind of place most people would think of as a tourist destination.

    The odd defector to successfully make it out usually confirms that life in the world’s most secretive state is indeed quite dreadful.

    Yet rotund leader Kim Jong-un has a coveted assignment for the North Korean tourist board (yes, that’s a thing): entice two million annual visitors in the next five years to the self-proclaimed ‘socialist fairyland.’

    We’re sure failure will be tolerated very well, in typical North Korean fashion.

    Currently North Korea accepts about 100,000 tourists per year. Like much of the country, tours are rigorously regimented, photography banned and independent movement is strictly prohibited, unless you’d like a permanent stay.

    Kim Jong-un is personally behind the move, as he has seen an opportunity to open the curtain on his family’s ghastly creation. Speaking in Pyongyang, he said: “Tourism can produce a lot of profit relative to the investment required, so that’s why our country is putting priority on it.

    Many people in foreign countries think in a wrong way about our country [but] we are developing our economy. So I think many people are curious about our country.”

    Aside from the personal safety and boredom aspects there are also deep ethical concerns about giving money to the repressive regime. The elites of the country get nearly all the proceeds of such ventures so there are concerns that foreign travel dollars just enable the regime to continue its long line of atrocities.

    The State Department, UK Foreign Office and all other government advisory boards in the west currently advise against travel to North Korea.

    Wikileaks Offers $100,000 Bounty For Full Text Of Shadowy TPP Trade Deal

    The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the most secretive trade deal in history. It is a defining deal for the Obama administration, solidifying their place in American history as the most secretive administration ever. And perhaps the most hypocritical, given Obama ran on a platform promising transparency yet did the precise opposite.

    Despite greatly impacting the American people, even Congress doesn’t have any input on the exact provisions of the trade deal.

    Wikileaks has published excerpts of early drafts, which show lots of shady side-deals, measures to destroy the environment and the surrendering of Americans’ rights to foreign governments in the interests of ‘trade’.

    In short, its a hand wrapped and delivered gift to American corporations and big Obama backers, at the direct expense of the American people.

    On Tuesday, whistle-blowing site Wikileaks announced a plan to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for the remaining chapters of the deal it hasn’t published. To date only three chapters of the shadowy agreement have surfaced.

    “The transparency clock has run out on the TPP. No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a written statement.

    Interest in the deal between the United States and other Pacific Rim countries is so high because it would hurt American workers and the economy. At least according to the explosive first three chapters.

    Even the three chapters, while giving some idea of what a deal would look like, are old, going back as far as 2012 and as recently as 2014.

    The $100,000 reward is the first under a new program for the organization, in which users can pledge funding on the chapters they want the most.

    Apple’s Most Trusted iPhone Manufacturer Will Soon Be Building Tons Of Electric Cars

    Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, thanks to lucrative manufacturing contracts to produce Apple’s iPhone, iPad and other devices.

    But it is increasingly a big player in electric car rentals in China, announcing plans today to expand its electric-car rental business in ten more cities in China. The company started the business in Beijing just last year.

    Foxconn, in partnership with Chinese automaker BAIC, now has 200 charging stations offering more than 1,000 BAIC E150 electric cars for rent in Beijing.

    Earlier this year Hon Hai has launched in Hangzhou and Changzhou in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu respectively. Guiyang, located in southwest Guizhou province, will begin with 100 electric cars in July.

    As the company looks to open ten new operations this year candidate cities include the megacities of Shanghai and Shenzhen, in addition to Wuzhou in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang region.

    Users book the cars through the company’s smartphone app, website and via the WeChat platform, China’s version of WhatsApp. The company works with Alibaba’s Alipay unit for online payment.

    The electric vehicle rental business doesn’t make much revenue for the company as the market is still young.

    But the most interesting part is that Hon Hai is aiming for the bigger contract manufacturing market behind it, according to one source.

    Which means Apple’s number one builder of devices will very soon have all the tools to mass produce electric vehicles.

    Its not a great leap of logic to imagine Foxconn making electric cars based on Apple designs, should the iPhone maker wish to enter the market.

    Putin’s Favorite Tigers Are Making A Comeback

    In Russia, what dictator Vladimir Putin wants, Vladimir Putin gets. The increasingly erratic Russian leader is known to have a soft spot for the endangered Amur tigers, which call Russia home. These tigers are continuing their comeback in Russia’s Far East.

    According to a new census, there may now be over 540, including just under a hundred cubs. Ten years ago there were just 420 a decade ago while in the 1940s, the species nearly went extinct with a population below 40.

    The large tigers, the largest of their species, weigh up to 660 lbs yet still remain endangered. Poaching remains the greatest threat to wild tigers today, with parts of their body in high demand throughout Asia, particularly China, which notoriously disregards wildlife trafficking laws. The parts are used in quack medicine.

    The most recent census was organized by the Russian government, with support from the Amur Tiger Center and the WWF. More than 5,792 sq miles was covered in the research, which involved a few thousand field specialists who used GPS, satellite navigators, and camera traps.

    Russian president Vladimir Putin, known for having a soft spot for big cats, has supported efforts to protect Amur tigers. Through harsher punishments and the introduction of criminal charges for the hunting, storage, and trafficking of endangered animals and their parts within Russia have aided the tigers’ comeback. Russia is also working with China to relax some border controls in order to give the cats more space to roam.

    “The key is strong political support,” said Mike Baltzer, who leads the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative. “Where we have it, in countries like Russia and India, we are seeing tremendous results. By contrast, tiger populations in Southeast Asia are dwindling due to weaker political support.”