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Russia Loses Second Rocket In A Month

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Russia lost its second rocket of the month when a technical problem sent part of a rocket and its satellite payload, raining down onto southeastern Siberia, according to Russian state media.

Roscosmos is a large launcher of commercial satellites and other payloads for the private sector, the vast majority of which complete their missions successfully.

The Proton-M, a reliable and well-used rocket, was feared lost after launch, the TASS news agency reported. This was due to an “emergency situation” occurring during the boost phase, Roscosmos said.

“Preliminary data indicate that the third stage and the Mexican satellite may fall in the Chita region. “The emergencies ministry has been notified,” the space agency said.

Roscosmos had announced the rocket would be carrying a communications satellite for the Mexican government.

ISIS Commander Killed In Special Ops Raid

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A senior ISIS commander was killed by U.S. Special Operations forces during a raid in eastern Syria overnight Friday to Saturday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter confirmed on Saturday. The raid was intended to capture him.

Abu Sayyaf, the ISIS commander, resisted capture and was killed in the raid in al-Amr.

Carter ordered the raid at the direction of President Obama. All U.S. troops involved in the operation returned home safely.

“Abu Sayyaf was involved in ISIL’s military operations and helped direct the terrorist organization’s illicit oil, gas, and financial operations as well,” he said.

His wife, Umm Sayyaf, was captured and is now in military detention in Iraq, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan confirmed in a statement.

Sayyaf “played an important role in ISIL’s terrorist activities, and may have been complicit in what appears to have been the enslavement of a young Yezidi woman rescued last night,” Carter said.

Umm Sayyaf has been involved in human trafficking and hostage taking.

About a dozen ISIS fighters were killed in the firefight, according to sources.

FCC Poised To Hit Back Hard If Comcast Sticks To Data Caps

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A well-placed source in Washington, D.C. told advocacy group Stop the Cap that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is prepared to take a detailed look at the issue of Internet data caps and usage-based billing if a major cable operators impose usage allowances on broadband internet access.

Comcast introduced a usage cap market trial in Nashville, Tenn. in 2012 but then expanded it to include Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama; Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah, Georgia; Central Kentucky; Maine; Jackson, Mississippi; Knoxville and Memphis, Tennessee; Charleston, South Carolina; and Tucson, Arizona.

In short, its pushing it out nationwide.

“Two and a half-years is exceptionally long for a ‘market trial,’ and we expected Comcast would avoid creating an issue for regulators by drawing attention to the data cap issue during its attempted merger with Time Warner Cable,” said the well placed source. “Now that the merger is off, there is growing expectation Comcast will make a decision about its ‘data usage plans’ soon.”

Comcast is limiting residential customers to 300GB of usage per month, after which an overage fee of $10 per 50GB applies. Comcast is using the usage-based billing to force customers to upgrade to the most expensive plans, which do not have such limits. That move is seen by abusive and predatory by the FCC.

Comcast customers in market test cities have been universally unhappy with the usage caps, after being confronted with inaccurate usage measurement tools or “bill shock” after claiming to find surprise charges on their cable bill.

One federal employee incurred $200 in overage fees on his April Comcast bill. Yet was only spending $70 a month on broadcast basic cable television and Comcast Internet service.

As a cord-cutter, he could instead rely on one of several alternative online video providers like Netflix or Hulu, but watching these services subjected him to hundreds of dollars in extra fees.

This is likely the primary aim of the billing scheme – force customers to pay the same price as internet plus TV, at a time when users are increasingly cancelling their TV service.

Air Force Readies Next Launch For Mystery Space Plane

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The Air Force will launch its mysterious orbital space drone for yet another mission on On May 20th, although the precise details of the mission are still secret.

The X-37B space plane, launched from Cape Canaveral, will head into low earth orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket for an undisclosed amount of times. While in space, the X-37B will carry out two public missions, in addition to top secret work. The missions will be for the Air Force and NASA.

The drone will publicly test a “new super-efficient propulsion system” for the Air Force known as a Hall thruster. It will also carry samples of various materials for NASA in order to study how well they respond to conditions in space.

The Hall thruster is a cutting edge electronic propulsion system which creates thrust by ionizing Xenon gas.

This system generates less power than a typical rocket but is significantly smaller and has much better fuel economy than a conventional rocket engine. This allows the X-37B to carry out more advanced maneuvers in space compared to other orbital vehicles.

Such maneuvers could be useful to, say, take out an enemy satellite. Or, given the X-37B has a cargo bay, capture an enemy satellite and return it to earth.

Previous missions of the space plane, while classified, have involved radical orbit changes which seem to have no other purpose other than to capture or destroy enemy satellites. China, as we covered earlier this week, is also working on these type of systems. It’s logical to conclude that the U.S. Air Force is doing the same.

The next launch for the X-37B will be the space craft’s fourth trip into space. All previous missions have been classified.

North Korea Publicly Executes Defense Minister With Anti-Aircraft Gun

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According to reports from South Korea, North Korea has publicly executed the country’s defense minister for treason.

Hyon Yong Chol was apparently killed by an anti-aircraft gun at a Pyongyang military school in front of hundreds of people. The report came from the South Korean Intelligence Agency and was delivered to members of the government in a private hearing.

The reason for Hyon’s execution is that he expressed discontent with dictator Kim Jong Un, and failed to follow his orders on several occasions, according to the chairman of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee and a lawmaker who attended the briefing.

The precise timing of Hyon’s execution is unclear but reports suggest he was killed “around April 30.” The last mention of him in North Korean state media was on Wednesday, April 29.

South Korean lawmaker Kim Gwang-lim said that Hyon was executed without trial within two to three days of being arrested.

The spectacular fall from grace is evident by the fact Hyon led a North Korean delegation to Moscow for a seminar on global security just last month.

His quick demise shows just how difficult it is to negotiate with the hermit kingdom – those who make deals may not be around long enough to see them through.

Kim himself had been scheduled to go mark Victory Day commemorations in Russia on May 9.The face Russian officials announced that he had pulled out to attend to “domestic issues” at home correlates with the minister’s execution.

While no single incident is said to have provoked Hyon’s arrest and execution, although along with general neglect of duty, Hyon was seen sleeping during a meeting organized by Kim Jong Un.

“Our government views that the purge is promoting the solidification of the only monolithic leadership of Kim Jong Un by creating atmosphere of fear,” said Lim Byeong-cheol, a South Korean official.

The United States confirmed earlier this week that the regime’s alleged test of s submarine launched missile was in fact a lie. Pentagon intelligence shows that North Korea is in fact at least five year away from such a successful test.

U.S. Considering Sending Surveillance Aircraft To South China Sea

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China’s belligerence in the South China Sea may have ramifications for the communist state, it was reported early Wednesday.

Officials reported to the press that the U.S. is considering deploying aircraft and ships to contest Chinese claims it has made regarding disputed islands in the South China Sea.

China’s neighbors have loudly objected to the building of military bases on disputed territory. China, as it tend to do in diplomacy, has outright lied and said it is not doing any building, despite satellite images to the contrary.

The options being considered are to fly surveillance aircraft or sail Navy ships nearby. Such a move would put the U.S. directly into a contentious territorial contest in East Asia, which, until now, the U.S. has avoided taking sides in.

China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam are all disputing sovereignty of several island chains and nearby waters.

Deadly Amtrak Derailment Kills At Least 6, Injures over 150

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Deadly Amtrak Derailment Kills At Least 6, Injures over 150

An Amtrak from Washington to New York derailed in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The crash tore cars apart, sent seven cars off the track and completely destoryed the train’s locomotive.

“We have confirmed an engine and all seven cars derailed,” a U.S. Department of Transportation representative said on Wednesday.

The engine and two cars were left standing upright, three cars were flipped on their sides, and one was nearly flipped over on its roof. A seventh is “leaning hard,” they said.

The train was travelling on Washing to Boston route, known as the northeast corridor, the busiest passenger line in the country. At the time of the crash the train was carrying 238 passengers and five crew members.

Six people have been confirmed killed and over 150 injured.

The cause is currently under investigation.

“We do not know what happened here. We do not know why it happened,” the USDOT said, through a spokesman.. There was no indication the derailment was a result of an impact with another train, he said.

So far, there’s nothing to indicate the incident was an act of terrorism.

The general area of the crash is known as Frankford Junction. It was the site of one of the nation’s deadliest train accidents when The Congressional Limited crashed, killing 79 people, in 1943.

Google Leaves Backdoor In Hangouts For Easy Warantless Wiretapping

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Google Leaves Backdoor In Hangouts For Easy Warantless Wiretapping

Google, a known NSA collaborator, has done its very best to muddy the waters about its cooperation with the unconstitutional spy programs. While on one hand allowing NSA wiretapping of its servers on the other its complained loudly and vocally about how NSA spying hurts its overseas business. To help placate users, it releases pretty reports showing which agencies have asked for what, ignoring that most requests come under FISA letters and therefore cannot be disclosed to anyone.

The company has again been caught talking out of both sides of its mouth, with revelations surfacing that while it claims its Hangouts chat product is secure, thanks to encryption, this is not done ‘end to end’.

Google has, in other words, left a backdoor so that the company, law enforcement and the NSA can all eavesdrop at will on the popular chat product.

Google has admitted during a Reddit Ask Me Anything post that while it does encrypt Hangouts conversations, it does not use end-to-end encryption, like Apple’s FaceTime, which cannot be tapped even by the company offering the service.

“A spokesperson confirmed that Hangouts doesn’t use end-to-end encryption. That makes it technically possible for Google to wiretap conversations at the request of law enforcement agents, even when you turn on the “off the record” feature, which actually only prevents the chat conversations from appearing in your history—it doesn’t provide extra encryption or security.” the company told blog Motherboard.

Google’s Transparency Report shows that the company received 26 wiretap requests from the US government in the 18 months running from the beginning of 2013 to the middle of last year. The company did not identify how many of these, if any, were for Hangouts.

Yet the number is suspiciously low, as most wiretap requests these days come in the form of FISA letters, which require the company to undergo a vow of silence regarding the order. The company is not permitted to say it received a request, skewing the data it releases.

FISA letters are not court approved and are instead issued by a shadowy ‘court’ of which few details are known.

Iowa Men Caught Smuggling Large Shipment Of Weapons To Syria

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A shocking discovery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, shows that the reaches of the middle east conflict extend to main street America. Packages from a charity clothing drive, organized in support for Syria and Lebanon, contained boxes of brand new guns and ammunition among the clothing, according to federal court documents filed Tuesday.

Authorities seized more than 152 firearms in two shipments to Lebanon. It is unknown if more firearms were shipped and not discovered by the investigation.

Four individuals with connections to middle east were charged in the complaint: Ali Herz, 50; his brother, Bassem Herz, 29; his son, Adam Herz, 22; and Sarah Zaeiter, 24, the spouse of Bassem Herz.

The four have been taken into custody and are awaiting a hearing.

The conspiracy that came to light last year when an unnamed firearms dealer in Eastern Iowa became suspicious and notified authorities. An investigation led authorities to the four individuals and two businesses which they ran.

Early Tuesday morning local and federal law enforcement officials conducted several raids including at Midamar and Pizza Daddy, the two businesses owned by the family.

“Homeland Security Investigations is conducting a joint federal/state/local law enforcement operation in various locations around Cedar Rapids today,” Shawn Neudauer, public information officer for ICE and Homeland Security, said in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation there is nothing further that is publicly available at this time. However, there should be additional information available via the U.S. Attorney’s Office — Northern District of Iowa (Cedar Rapids) later today.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office, which declined to comment.

ITT Educational Services Latest Education Compay To Hit Rocks, Charged By SEC

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The federal government continues its wide ranging crackdown on low quality for-profit colleges, as the SEC today announced fraud charges against ITT Educational Services Inc., its chief executive officer Kevin Modany, and its chief financial officer Daniel Fitzpatrick.

The announcement was made just hours after Art Institute announced it was closing 15 colleges across the country and weeks after former high flyer Corinthian Colleges filed for bankruptcy, closing all its campuses.

The SEC alleges that the national operator of for-profit colleges and the two executives fraudulently concealed from ITT’s investors the poor performance and looming financial impact of two student loan programs that ITT financially guaranteed.

ITT formed both of these student loan programs, known as the “PEAKS” and “CUSO” programs, to provide off-balance sheet loans for ITT’s students following the collapse of the private student loan market. To induce others to finance these risky loans, ITT provided a guarantee that limited any risk of loss from the student loan pools.

According to the SEC’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, the underlying loan pools had performed so abysmally by 2012 that ITT’s guarantee obligations were triggered and began to balloon. Rather than disclosing to its investors that it projected paying hundreds of millions of dollars on its guarantees, ITT and its management took a variety of actions to create the appearance that ITT’s exposure to these programs was much more limited. Over the course of 2014 as ITT began to disclose the consequences of its practices and the magnitude of payments that ITT would need to make on the guarantees, ITT’s stock price declined dramatically, falling by approximately two-thirds.

The charges show that for-profit education companies were scamming both students and investors. Students received low quality education at sky-high prices while having few employment prospects. Loans to the students were then sold onto investors who were unaware of the true credit quality of the loans.

“Our complaint alleges that ITT’s senior-most executives made numerous material misstatements and omissions in its disclosures to cover up the subpar performance of student loans programs that ITT created and guaranteed,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Modany and Fitzpatrick should have been responsible stewards for investors but instead, according to our complaint, they engineered a campaign of deception and half-truths that left ITT’s auditors and investors in the dark concerning the company’s mushrooming obligations.”

Third Bangladeshi Blogger Hacked To Death By Masked Islamic Extremists

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Masked men with machetes hacked to death a prominent blogger and author Tuesday, near his home in northeastern Bangladesh, police said.

This marks the third fatal attack by masked men on authors this year in the country.

Ananta Bijoy Das died immediately after being attacked in the city of Sylhet. He was on his way to work at a bank, said Rahmat Ullah, police commissioner in Sylhet.

Ullah said the blogger was attacked by at least four masked men. “We don’t have details, we are looking into it,” he said.

While it was not immediately clear why Das was targeted, Islamic extremists are likely responsible. He was reportedly close to Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American blogger and writer who was executed in February by Islamist extremists.

Das wrote for Roy’s popular blog Mukto-mona, or Free Mind, which featured articles on scientific reasoning and religious extremism. Das also edited a science magazine and wrote several books which are frowned upon by extreme Islamists.

Roy wrote strongly against religious fundamentalism and was attacked along with his wife on the streets of Dhaka, the capital, when he returned from the United States. His wife survived the attack although she was severely injured.

Another blogger, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, died in March after also being attacked by Islamic radicals.

As Alcohol Consumption Declines Dangerous Binge Drinking Rises

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As Alcohol Consumption Declines Dangerous Binge Drinking Rises

While alcohol consumption in wealthy, developed countries has declined globally over the past two decades its given rise to dangerous binge drinking among the young, according to a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The 34-nation OECD advises governments on policies for economic growth.

The organization found that average annual alcohol consumption in its member countries fell 2.5 percent over the past 20 years, to 9.1 litres of pure alcohol per person.

But the overall trend hides a dangerous increase in hazardous drinking by young people as measured by both the amount and the rate that alcohol is consumed.

Teens tend to be drinking less often, but in higher volume and pace than their historical peers, in a phenomena known as ‘bing drinking’. So while alcohol use is down on the whole, its up in a particular demographic.

Consuming alcohol now accounts for a higher proportion of deaths worldwide than HIV/AIDS, violence and tuberculosis combined, according to the report, entitled “Tackling Harmful Alcohol Use.”

Wall Street Already Busy Rewriting History For 2016 Election

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Understandably top executives from the biggest U.S. banks are concerned about anti-Wall Street rhetoric on the 2016 campaign trail.

The banks have, after all, been running sophisticated criminal enterprises that have victimized hardworking Americans in varies schemes over the last 15 years. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Barclays and more have all pleaded guilty to numerous criminal offenses in the last year alone.

The size of the fines is in the 10s of billions yet nobody has been held criminally accountable for the highly predatory actions of the banks.

Most Americans go to jail for stealing a few hundred dollars and yet banks steal billions, get fined only millions and then are free to try again.

And if their scheme backfire, as they did in the 2008-2009 financial crisis, main street America has to bail them out and pay the lavish banker bonuses.

So understandably, people are upset.

But the large criminal banks are undeterred. Senior executives from seven of the biggest U.S. banks gathered or dialed into a March 31st conference on the 51st floor of the Bank of America Tower in New York to discuss how the firms can counteract statements about large banks, according to secret emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The effort underscores the degree to which Wall Street banks will go to maintain their criminal rackets. With deep pockets and loads of political influence, the banks are more than capable of re-writing history. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.

Gathering of top firm executives was organized by John Rogers, of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and James Mahoney, Bank of America Corp.’s head of corporate communications. Both banks are among the leaders of the criminal banking syndicates and have recently been subjected to tighter regulation in an effort to reduce their riskiness and limit losses to taxpayers in the event of another financial crisis.

It is unclear if the banks will continue to meet on the issue but further discussions are likely to take place, as the banks seek to aggressively fight regulation and cover up their dirty deeds.

Australia Denies Medical Coverage To Those Who Refuse Vaccines

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Australia Denies Medical Coverage To Those Who Refuse Vaccines

Australia’s hardliner conservative government has instituted a “no jab, no pay” policy, which will stop families of unvaccinated children from accessing family and child care benefits. The government estimates it will save more than $500 million from the measure.

The move, designed to punish parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, will affect at least 10,000 families per year. It is estimated to save $142 million per year, totaling $508 million over the next four years. Some doubt the estimates as if parents are cut off from other, vital, services they may just vaccinate their children, eliminating any financial benefit to the government.

At the same time as the program is instituted the government will spend $26 million during that time on programs to encourage immunization, including improved vaccine registers covering all school-based vaccinations, incentives to doctors who target non-immunized children, and running an information campaign to raise public awareness of the health risks.

The “no jab, no pay” policy has faced opposition from immunization experts, who say it’s more effective to spend money on programs that target families that want to be immunized, but face barriers such as poverty or have missed vaccines because they were born abroad.

According to University of Sydney professor Julie Leask has said only about 2 per cent of families are registered as conscientious objectors to vaccination, and about half of those aren’t hardened opponents that could be easily swayed.

Yet about 4 or 5 per cent of parents have not had their children immunized because of difficulty accessing the program.

Yet slogans like “no jab, no pay” and the idea of punishing objectors resonate with the governing party’s conservative voter base, so the policy goes for the votes rather than solving the underlying health issues.

The strategy is familiar to many citizens around the globe who see policies come into force that do not represent logic, instead seeking to win votes and appeal to party ideologies rather than solve problems.

Connecticut Serial Killer Positively Identified

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The killing of at least seven people, whose bodies were buried behind a New Britain, Connecticut, shopping center has led multiple law enforcement sources to identify William Devin Howell as the serial killer responsible.

The 45-year-old is currently incarcerated at a Connecticut prison on separate manslaughter charges.

Howell’s is spending 15-years at the Garner Correctional Institution stemming from the homicide of Nilsa Arizmendi, a 33-year-old Wethersfield resident who vanished in 2003. Her body was never found.

Howell was put on trial for her murder but pleaded to the lesser charge of manslaughter, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice.

Howell was arrested in North Carolina in 2004 and his van was seized as evidence. Arizmendi was last seen entering his van before she disappeared. Authorities found Arizmendi’s blood in the van, as well as the blood of an unidentified person. They also found video that shows two other women. Their identities and fates remain unknown.

Howell was working odd jobs in Connecticut at the time of Arizmendi’s disappearance.

Investigators have now recovered the bodies of at least seven people from a wooded area behind the shopping plaza at 593 Hartford Road, where a local hunter found the first set of remains in 2007.

Police have declined to officially name the suspected serial killer, citing an ongoing investigation, but have said that the person they are looking at is no longer a threat to the community. Multiple sources have leaked William Devin Howell’s name to the press.

Four of the seven victims have so far been identified – all as women who vanished in 2003.

Art Institute Closures Highlight Massive Problems With For Profit Education

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Art Institute Closures Highlight Massive Problems With For Profit Education

Joining Corinthian Colleges, the Art Institute announced that it is closing 15 locations around the country. The art schools are under the management of Education Management Corporation (EDMC), based in Pittsburgh, Penn.

The move highlights a trend in for profit schools: High tuition, poor quality instruction and low job placements have finally caught up with the former darlings of Wall Street.

Regulators have also played a role.

In 2011 EDMC was investigated by the Department of Justice for targeting low-income families and enrolling too many students at once so that when those students graduated there weren’t enough jobs to go around. The practices created chaos and financial ruin for all involved.

“Are we going to have a school? Am I going to come here one day and the doors are going to be closed?” asked graphic design student Patrick Howard. “We don’t have a guaranteed thing in writing that no matter what happens we’re going to finish out our graduate diploma.”

Similar problems face students of Corinthian, who were simply shut out of their schools after the company filed for bankruptcy. Because of system that does not standardize curriculums or accreditations, student were left with credits that could not be transferred – effectively losing all the time and effort they had put into the programs.

For now a Wednesday email is just telling students enrollment will be ending. But don’t be surprised if Art Institute closes up shop for good, leaving hundreds of students stranded.

The next step for the students is just getting back into the classroom until they can figure something out, if that’s possible.

The Jacksonville branch of the school told its students they’ll help in any way they can, even holding an open forum to answer questions last week, but there are still a lot answers needed from those at the very top level – corporate.

Thus far, management has issues vaguely worded statements that have not inspired much confidence in light of other college failures around the country.

New Technology Lets You Charge Your Phone From Any Plant

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Green energy is coming in all different shapes and sizes – solar, wind, road energy and now plants!

Chilean company E-Kaia’s charging solution captures energy from plants via a “biocircuit board,” though further details on the precise inner workings are scant. The company won’t discuss specifics while its patents are still under review.

But they have shown a demo unit, which can charge small devices, like mobile phones or LED lights, using a single healthy plant. Pant-e’s invention can output as much as 5 volts at 0.6 amps.

As a point of reference, Apple’s ultra-compact USB power adapter, the one included with your iPhone, pushes 5 volts at 1 amp.

Creators Evelyn Aravena, Carolina Guerrero, and Camila Rupcich are looking to commercialize E-Kaia this year. They’ve already received funding from the economic development arm of the Chilean government to pursue their invention.

E-Kaia isn’t the first with this sort of technology but it is by far the most efficient. Plant-e, based in the Netherlands, has a competing solution that requires 100 square meters of plants to harvest a similar amount of energy. E-Kaia, which requires just a single plant, seems poised to revolutionize the market, especially in less developed countries where grid power is scarce.

Wyoming Just Criminalized Taking Photos Of Yellowstone National Park

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Wyoming Just Criminalized Taking Photos Of Yellowstone National Park

Wyoming just enacted a shocking new law that criminalizes citizens’ collecting any sort of data – photos, temperature, soil samples or water samples for example – if they are planning to share this data with the federal government.

Why such a bizarre law? It isn’t about the pictures, actually.

The law is about anything that could be used to report the condition of the environment across most of the state. Why do this?

The state government wants to conceal the fact that most of its streams are contaminated by E. coli bacteria, which can cause serious health problems, even death.

A small organization called Western Watersheds Project has found E.coli concentrations that violate water quality standards stipulated by the federal Clean Water Act. The rivers run through federal land, which would allow the going public to monitor the levels without state interference.

But instead of engaging in an honest public debate about the cause or extent of the problem, Wyoming would rather pretend the problem didn’t exist. So under the new law, the state threatens anyone who would challenge this denial by producing information that documents the issue, with a term in jail.

So why does the government want to suppress this issue rather than address it?

The reason is pure politics.

Where the E. coli comes from is clear. It comes from cows spending too much time in and around streams.

But acknowledging this fact would result in rules requiring ranchers, who graze their cows on public land, to better manage their herds.

And the ranching community in Wyoming wields immense political power. It has no interest in undertaking such obligations. Given they donate heavily to politicians in the state the government is trying to stop the flow of information rather than addressing the public health problem.

The new law effectively mandates that if you discover an environmental disaster, you’re obliged to keep it to yourself.

The new law is of breathtaking scope.

Specifically, it makes “collecting resource data” from any “open land,” meaning any land outside of a city or town, whether it’s federal, state, or privately owned, a crime.

The law defines the word ‘collect’ as any method to “preserve information in any form,” including a “photograph”, so long as the person gathering it intends to submit it to a federal or state agency.

So in short, the law criminalizes whistle blowing that could prevent a public heath disaster and save lives.

Saudi Arabia Poised To Enter Yemen, Moves Strike Force To Border

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Saudi Arabia moved a “strike force” to its border with Yemen, according to local media reports on Tuesday. Despite agreeing to a five day truce, the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels are continuing to exchange heavy fire.

Local broadcaster Al Arabiya TV showed videos of a column of tanks being moved atop military trucks, calling the scene “the arrival of reinforcements from the strike force to the border.”

The move followed intense artillery and rocket battles across the border on Monday.

The Saudis reportedly fired more than 150 rockets aimed at Yemen’s Saada and Hajjah provinces.

Saudi warplanes were reported to have struck Houthi encampments in the central city of Taiz as well as in Marib, the oil-producing province located east of the capital, Sanaa.

News outlet AFP reported the attacks prompted retaliatory fire from the Houthis, who fired Katyusha rockets and mortars on the Saudi cities of Jizan and Najran.

The violence comes just a day before a ceasefire, scheduled to start Tuesday, which could be jeopardized by continuing fighting between the two sides. The short humanitarian truce would Saudi airstrikes.

Iyad Nasr, regional spokesperson for the United Nations, said that five days might not be enough to “cover the whole of Yemen.”

“But at least we are looking at the accessing the situation on the ground, providing basic and life-saving operations to the Yemenis and priority areas,” Nasr said. “Additionally, we are seriously considering bringing aid supplies and fuel into Yemen from outside the country. This is a part of the humanitarian pause that we are looking forward to have in Yemen.”

The truce, in an effort to protect Yemeni civilians, came after UN officials called the bombing a breach of international law.

“The indiscriminate bombing of populated areas, with or without prior warning, is in contravention of international humanitarian law (IHL),” said Johannes van der Klaauw, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen. “Issuing warnings of impending attacks does not absolve the parties of their IHL obligations to protect civilians from harm.”

“Many civilians are effectively trapped in Sanaa as they are unable to access transport because of the fuel shortage. The targeting of an entire governorate will put countless civilians at risk,” Van der Klaauw said.

The city, as well as other parts of the country, are experiencing severe shortages of food and other resources.

Diesel and other fuel supplies are running dangerously low, with people having to resort to firewood. The fuel crisis “has paralyzed public life, but we have to provide for our families and work with whatever we have, as long as we are alive” said Abdullah Harazi, a bakery owner in Sanaa.

Iran Supporting Use Of Child Soldiers In Yemen

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Shocking reports emerged Tuesday that Iranian-backed Houthi armed groups in Yemen has been intensely recruiting, training, and deploying child soldiers in violation of international law.

Since the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, took control of Yemen’s capital in September 2014, they have increasingly used children as scouts, guards, runners, and fighters. Many of the children have been wounded and killed.

Human Rights Watch said that the Houthis and other armed groups using child soldiers in Yemen should “immediately stop recruiting children, including “volunteers,” and release all children in their ranks.”

“As fighting rages in Yemen, the Houthis have ramped up their recruitment of children,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser. “Commanders from the Houthis and other armed groups should stop using children or risk prosecution for war crimes.”

Human Rights Watch went on to detail that in addition to the Houthi rebels, Islamist and tribal militias as well as armed groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are also using child soldiers.

UNICEF found that children with the Houthis comprise up to a third of all fighters in Yemen.

The proxy war, between Iran and Saudi Arabia, is essentially being fought by children.

Over 140 child soldiers were recruited by armed groups between March 26 and April 24, 2015, alone, the UN agency said.

These reports fit with eyewitness accounts from journalists in Yemen, who have reported seeing boys between 14 and 16 with rifles and handguns fighting for Houthi forces and other armed groups. One described seeing a 7-year-old boy at a Houthi checkpoint in Sanaa with a military assault rifle.

The picture is similar to Africa in the late 90s when children filled the ranks of numerous warring factions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Mozambique. The result was a generation of lost children who returned from battle scarred, angry or violent.

Africa continues to deal with this legacy today. It’s likely the middle east will face a similar problem in the decades to come given the pervasiveness of the issue.

As World’s Population Grows Food Supply Is Becoming Increasingly Unstable

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As World’s Population Grows Food Supply Is Becoming Increasingly Unstable

Italian and Swiss researchers published a paper this week showing that as the world’s population increases and food demand grows, globalization of trade has made the food supply more sensitive to environmental and market fluctuations

The research was published online in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that the increasingly sensitivity leads to greater chances of food crises, particularly in nations where land and water are scarce and food security strongly relies on imports.

The study assesses the food supply of more than 140 nations (with populations greater than 1 million) and demonstrates that food security is becoming increasingly susceptible to spikes in demographic growth, with humanity placing increased pressure on the use of limited land and water resources.

“In the past few decades there has been an intensification of international food trade and an increase in the number of countries that depend on food imports,” said Paolo D’Odorico, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and one of the authors. “On average, about one-fourth of the food we eat is available to us through international trade. This globalization of food may contribute to the spread of the effects of local shocks in food production throughout the world.”

Food security, D’Odorico added, is typically defined as the availability of and access to a sufficient amount of food to meet the requirements of human societies at all places and all times.

“In order to have food security, food availability and accessibility need to be sustainable and resilient to perturbations associated with shocks in production and price spikes,” he said. “We’re finding that as the globalization of food increases, the coupled population/food system becomes more fragile and susceptible to conditions of crisis.”

Survey Shows Americans Becoming Less Christian, More Secular

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According to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday, Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the ‘none’ faith group the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals.

Yes Christianity is still the biggest faith by far in the U.S., with 7 in 10 Americans identifying with the tradition. Yet the ranks of Christians have declined as people leave the religion and ascribe to nothing instead.

Pew conducted two major surveys of U.S. religious life, between 2007 and 2014. Americans who described themselves as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith grew from 16 percent to nearly 23 percent.

While this was happening, Christians dropped from about 78 percent to just under 71 percent of the population.

The Pew researchers have long debated whether people with no religion should be defined as secular since the classification includes those who believe in God or consider themselves “spiritual.”

The new Pew study found increasing signs of secularism.

Last year, 31 percent of “nones” said they were atheist or agnostic, compared to 25 percent in 2007. Along with this change, the percentage who said religion was important to them also dropped.

Pew’s associate research director, Greg Smith, said the findings “point to substantive changes” among those who claim no religion, not mearly a shift in how people describe themselves.

The rise of “nones” has political significance. People with no religion are likely to vote Democratic, while white evangelicals are likely to vote Republican.

The Pew study found a drop of about 1 percent in the evangelical share of the population, which now comprises a quarter of Americans. Yet the overall number of evangelicals rose to about 62 million people, meaning they are still growing yet losing market share.

The “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” survey was conducted on 35,000 people in English and Spanish from June 4th through Sept. 30th of 2014. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percent.

Hawaii Votes To Use 100% Renewable Energy… By 2045

Patty Van Winkle
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Hawaii Votes To Use 100% Renewable Energy… By 2045

In a symbolic first for a U.S. state, lawmakers in Hawaii passed legislation last week, by a 74-2 vote, requiring the state to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy.

Yet it won’t hit the target until 2045, meaning that despite rapid advances in solar technology and wind power, the island will essentially fit the trend. It’s good PR to sign such a bill yet actually is just where things are headed.

By 2045 solar will be absolutely everywhere, with the cost of panels many orders cheaper than they are today. So while its nice Hawaii is making headlines in the right direction, the timing shows no real commitment to the environment.

HB 623, if signed into law by Governor David Ige, would make Hawaii the first U.S. state to attempt complete decarbonization. Hawaii’s energy mix is currently more than 80 percent fossil fuel, with oil providing the majority of electricity generation on the islands.

“As the first state to move toward 100 percent renewable energy, Hawaii is raising the bar for the rest of the country,” said Chris Lee, the Chairman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee “Local renewable projects are already cheaper than liquid natural gas and oil, and our progress toward meeting our renewable energy standards has already saved local residents hundreds of millions on their electric bills.”

Rand Paul Threatens To Filibuster PATRIOT Act Renewal

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Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has said he will filibuster to prevent any renewal of the controversial Patriot Act, which mostly expires on June 1st.

The move can only be described as ‘privacy theater’.

While the move will get attention from the presidential hopeful and paint him as a candidate who care about your privacy and rights, the reality is nothing will change because of Mr Paul’s tactics and Mr Paul has done little up until this point to genuinely advocate for the privacy of hard-working Americans.

“We will be filibustering [and] we will be trying to stop it,” said Paul. “We are not going to let them run over us [and] we are going to demand amendments … we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches.”

‘Some of us’ is the operative word as most Senators ave always been in favor of massive spying on American citizens.

As it stands now, the NSA is the world’s largest collector and processor of data, maintaining a detailed spy file on every single American citizen. Most troubling is that they have deep files on all our government officials – Senators, Congressman, Supreme Court Judges and military leaders, whom they have been shown to lie to repeatedly.

Because of this fear many Republican and Democratic senators are set to support the bill’s renewal, with many attempting to establish further basis for increased powers.

Mr Paul is currently seeking the Republican nomination for the US Presidential elections in 2016.

Former NSA Director Clapper Lied Under Oath, Faces No Consequences

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If a regular American lies to a court they go to jail. If they lie under oath to the Senate or Congress they face an even longer jail term.

But when the director of the NSA repeatedly lies to the Senate about the illegal activities of his agency, nothing happens. Zero.

Instead, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claims to have forgot the program even existed during a key hearing two years ago.

The stance highlights the NSA’s deep contempt for the rule of law and the concept of being accountable to the American people, their employer.

Robert Litt, the DNI’s general counsel, spoke of the alleged memory lapse during a panel hearing Friday hosted by the Advisory Committee on Transparency.

He attempted to explain why, in a now-infamous exchange several months before the Snowden disclosures, Clapper told a Senate committee that his agency does not “wittingly” sweep up information on millions of Americans.

He wasn’t lying, proclaimed Litt to an incredulous audience “It was perfectly clear that he had absolutely forgotten the existence of the 215 program.”

Clapper’s early 2013 testimony only created a congressional controversy after the Snowden revelations showed the NSA was gathering mass amounts of data on Americans.

At the hearing, which received little media coverage, Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper whether the NSA “collects any type of data at all” on millions of Americans.

Clapper told Wyden: “No sir, it does not.” Asked for clarification, he said “not wittingly.”

Clapper later apologized, sending a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee saying his answer was “clearly erroneous” and that he “simply didn’t think” of the massive data slurping program.

The NSA’s massive data collection program has prompted lawsuits, internal reviews and a fierce congressional debate over whether to scrap it.

Yet these appear to be boilerplate for talking about the program, as congress appears set renew its authorization and has done little to halt it or make it more publicly accountable.

Perhaps that’s what happens when our secret police have a dossier on every single congressman, senator, supreme court judge and senior military commanders.

Verizon Buys AOL In Sign It May Accept Net Neutrality Regulations

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Verizon Buys AOL In Sign It May Accept Net Neutrality Regulations

The internet and telecom landscape became a very interesting place on Tuesday as Verizon announced it is buying AOL for $4.4 billion, or about $50 a share.

Verizon said the deal is part of a “new focus on digital and video platforms, as well as the “Internet of Things””.

“This acquisition supports our strategy to provide a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers to deliver that premium customer experience,” said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam.

While Verizon provides access to internet content,AOL, one a pioneering Internet brand, now provides that content via several media businesses, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, MAKERS and AOL.com.

These assets appear to dwarf the roughly two million people still using the company’s dialup connection, suggesting that Verizon sees the writing on the wall – its internet business will be a utility, which it will not be able to price gouge and extort content owners for premium delivery speeds.

Instead, it seems, the company must move into content businesses and away from its internet access business.

AOL will become a subsidy of Verizon while CEO Tim Armstrong will remain in his post after the deal is done, at least for the moment. The deal is worth tens of millions to Mr. Armstrong, who owns significant portions of AOL stock, in addition to a lucrative golden parachute package.

Armstrong said on CNBC on Tuesday that AOL is “as big as it can possibly be in today’s landscape” and that the merger would propel the company into “a space where there are going to be massive, global-scale networks.”

The merger is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close this summer.

Nepal Rocked By Another 7.3 Magnitude Earthquake

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At least 30 more people are dead in Nepal after a new earthquake struck the already-devastated nation early Tuesday morning.

The center of the quake was a remote area of eastern Nepal, near the border with China, which leveled buildings already weakened by the 7.8 magnitude quake that killed thousands of people just two and a half weeks ago.

The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed a magnitude of 7.3 and a depth of about 9 miles, revising its earlier estimates. Accompanying the strong quake were a series of almost equally sized aftershocks, the strongest measuring magnitude 6.3.

The country was still picking up the pieces from April 25th’s magnitude 7.8 quake that hit central Nepal, killing over 8,000 people. That quake struck 75 kilometers east of capital Kathmandu, causing many building in the city to be destroyed.

Residents rushed into the streets of the capital, running with crowds of other people vainly seeking open space in the congested city.

Police advised people to stay in open areas and keep roads clear for emergency services.

The death toll is likely to climb as the damage is fully surveyed.

Ebay Refuses To Stop Selling Puppy Mill Dogs Online

Patty Van Winkle
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Ebay has a dirty little secret. While its flagship Ebay marketplace runs a tight ship, it also runs a Canadian-based classified website, Kijiji, that allows the trafficking of animals.

The site takes no step to verify ethical breeding practices, resulting in many of the animals coming from ‘puppy mills’. Animal rights activists have been trying to stop the practice for years, but refuses to do so.

Canadian librarian Barbara Lapointe has gathered more than 104,000 signatories to a petition asking Kijiji to stop allowing pet sales on the site.

Ethics professionals say the sale of pets, especially from unlicensed breeders, results in cruelty and irresponsible breeding.

Adoptions from registered shelters and rescue organizations is the preferred method of coming to own a pet.

Ebay’s current policy allows vendors to make huge profits by selling pets produced in dog or cat mills and other unsanitary, mass-production facilities.

So far the practice of condoning such sales has cost Ebay six advertisers, including Toyota Canada and two of the country’s major banks.

While Ebay profits from the cruel practice, Craigslist and other classified sites refuse to allow breeders to post ads in order to protect animals.

Ebay spokesman Shawn McIntyre said the company feel unscrupulous breeders would simply find a new home for their ads, in an argument reminiscent of one used commonly by drug dealers. If I didn’t do it, they argue, someone else would.

And yet the Ebay-owned company does not allow ads for escorts, despite other marketplaces online offering these services.

Clearly the company feels that as long as it isn’t illegal, its fair game for profit. And yet this stance is inconsistent with Ebay’s main marketplace, which bans numerous legal items on ethical grounds.

“The problem is it’s really easy for unethical breeders to disguise themselves online,” the petition reads. “There is no way Kijiji would be able to catch all the bad posts. If thousands of us send messages to them, I’m sure they’ll do the right thing.”

“I think it contributes to the purchase of dogs coming from horrible, cruel and inhumane conditions,” Lapointe said of Kijiji’s policy.

Shell Receives Permission To Drill In Pristine Arctic

Patty Van Winkle
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In a highly controversial decision global oil giant Royal Dutch Shell won approval from the U.S. Department of Interior to drill for oil in the Arctic in Monday.

The approval is not a final permit to begin operations as the firm must still receive approval from other regulators, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The decision is controversial because shell had previous issues that resulted in it stopping Arctic exploration more than two years ago because of problems including an oil rig fire and safety failures.

Environmental campaigners strongly oppose the move to drill in the arctic, a region estimated to have about 20% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas. One permit and successful exploration could lead to many more. That in turn would likely lead to severe ecological damage, according to environmental group.

“We have taken a thoughtful approach to carefully considering potential exploration in the Chukchi Sea,” said Abigail Ross Harper, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

This conditional approval requires permits from the federal government and the state of Alaska to begin drilling.

“Our government has rushed to approve risky and ill-conceived exploration in one of the most remote and important places on Earth” said Susan Murray, an official at Oceana, a group who opposes Arctic drilling.

The last time it tried to drill in the area it failed to have a spill-response barge on site, as it had promised, and the outbreak of fire on the Noble Discoverer rig.

In addition, The Kulluk, a drilling barge, broke away from its towing vessel and ran aground.

Nebraska Prison On Lockdown After 2 Inmates Die In Riot

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Nebraska Prison On Lockdown After 2 Inmates Die In Riot

Two inmates are dead at a maximum security prison in southeastern Nebraska. A large group of inmates took control of part of the facility, according to the state Department of Correctional Services.

As of Monday morning, corrections staff have secured the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution. Staff are currently assessing conditions as of Monday evening.

Upon investigation after the facility was secured two inmates were found dead in a housing unit. The identities of the killed prisoners are not being disclosed until their next of kin are notified.

The Nebraska State Patrol is investigating both the disturbance and the deaths.

The riot began at 2:30pm Sunday at the facility when correctional officers tried to break up a large group of inmates in front of a housing unit said James Foster, a department spokesman.

In all, two staff members were assaulted, one inmate was shot and “multiple housing units” had small fires and property damage, according to a statement released by the department.

Those inside the housing unit described the scene, saying: “The ceilings are fallen. There’s drywall on fire. There’s cameras torn down,” according to local newspaper the Journal Star.

The 960-bed Tecumseh State Correctional Institution opened in 2001 and is located in Johnson County, about 60 miles southwest of Lincoln.

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