https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/09/california-lawmaker-behind-metoo-push-is-accused-of-groping-male-staffer/?hpid=hp_hp-morning-mix_mm-lawmaker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.519fda0294e3

California Democratic Assemblywoman and vocal #MeToo advocate Cristina Garcia is under investigation for allegedly groping a former male staffer. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

A California lawmaker who has gained national recognition for fighting against sexual misconduct in the state Capitol is accused of groping a former legislative staffer.

The staffer, Daniel Fierro, told The Washington Post on Thursday that Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who has become a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement, approached him alone after an assembly softball game in 2014, squeezed his buttocks and tried to touch his crotch. He said Garcia was visibly intoxicated.

Fierro, who was 25 at the time, did not report the incident because he worried about the long-term consequences that could come with accusing the powerful lawmaker, who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus and the Natural Resources Committee. But in January he told his former boss, Democratic Assemblyman Ian Calderon, who referred the matter to an assembly panel that is now investigating Garcia.

Politico was the first to report on Fierro’s allegations. The story also included sexual misconduct allegations against Garcia from an anonymous male lobbyist that The Post was not able to independently verify.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/us/alabama-viral-child-pornography-video/index.html

(CNN)An Alabama man is in custody Tuesday as a suspect in a child pornography video that was shared worldwide on social media, authorities said.

Germaine Moore, 44, of Millbrook, Alabama, turned himself in to authorities outside of Montgomery early Tuesday, according to Lt. Brooke Walker, commander of the Alabama Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The video depicts a sexual act between an adult male and a minor, whom authorities believe was 6 years old at the time.

Many people shared the video on social media in an apparent attempt to locate the man seen in the video, leading authorities in several states to warn people they could face charges for sharing and possessing the video, according to CNN affiliates WTKR and WFSA.

Charges are pending against Moore in Alabama, according to Elmore County District Attorney Randall V. Houston. Moore already faces criminal sexual conduct charges in Michigan involving three young relatives he allegedly sexually assaulted over the course of several years in Michigan and Alabama, the Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

"I believe we have the right person for this event," Walker told CNN.
Alabama authorities are trying to determine when and where the viral video was taken, and who first shared it to social media. Walker said the video is not a recent video. Authorities believe that a person in the Montgomery area originally posted the video to Facebook, Walker told CNN.

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/02/05/sean-hannity-blames-obama-historic-market-crash/219279

Hannity: "The era of cheap money at some point has to come to an end"

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Because the Obama economy was so weak all of these years we had just artificially cheap money. Now what’s cheap money? Cheap money is when you can borrow at ridiculously low rates. The era of cheap money at some point has to come to an end. The government has artificially, the Fed has artificially kept the price of money down and the price borrowing down and now that’s going to come to an end. In many ways it represents; Ashley Webster is the name? In many ways it’s a sign of the strength of the economy more than anything else.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/30/plastic-road-india-tar-plastic-transport-environment-pollution-waste

In India, roads made from shredded plastic are proving a popular solution to tackling waste and extreme weather

Jambulingam Street, Chennai, is a local legend. The tar road in the bustling Nungambakkam area has weathered a major flood, several monsoons, recurring heat waves and a steady stream of cars, trucks and auto rickshaws without showing the usual signs of wear and tear. Built in 2002, it has not developed the mosaic of cracks, potholes or craters that typically make their appearance after it rains. Holding the road together is an unremarkable material: a cheap, polymer glue made from shredded waste plastic.

Jambulingam Street was one of India’s first plastic roads . The environmentally conscious approach to road construction was developed in India around 15 years ago in response to the growing problem of plastic litter. As time wore on, polymer roads proved to be surprisingly durable, winning support among scientists and policymakers in India as well as neighboring countries like Bhutan. “The plastic tar roads have not developed any potholes, rutting, raveling or edge flaw, even though these roads are more than four years of age,” observed an early performance report by India’s Central Pollution Control Board. Today, there are more than 21,000 miles of plastic road in India, and roughly half are in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Most are rural roads, but a small number have also been built in cities such as Chennai and Mumbai.

Adding flexible materials to strengthen tar roads is not a new idea. Commercially made polymer-modified asphalts first became popular in the 1970s in Europe. Now, North America claims 35% of the global market. Modified asphalts are made from virgin polymers and sometimes crumb rubber (ground tires). They are highly versatile: Illinois uses them to build high-traffic truck roads, Washington State uses them for noise reduction and in rural Ontario they are used to prevent roads from cracking after a harsh winter. Polymerized asphalts also tend not to buckle in extreme heat the way conventional roads do – plastic roads will not melt unless the temperature goes beyond 66C (150F), compared to 50.2C (122.5F) for ordinary roads – and are frequently used on roads in the Middle East.

But even in the US, cost is a significant barrier. The most widely used polymer, styrene-butadiene-styrene, can increase the price of a road by 30-50%. In India, high-stress roads like runways and expressways are increasingly using polymer modified asphalts made by manufacturers like DuPont.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/04/us/philadelphia-after-super-bowl-win/index.html

Shortly after the final whistle, Philadelphia Eagles supporters came out en masse to celebrate their team's victory over the New England Patriots and the Eagles's first-ever Super Bowl victory in franchise history.

The festivities, however, weren't without instances of vandalism and looting by some fans.

Between the "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles" chants, some fans flipped over a car.

https://twitter.com/Christie_Ileto/status/960369595633848320

Aerial images from CNN affiliate WPVI showed fans packing Broad Street leading up to Philadelphia City Hall. Fans crammed the streets shoulder to shoulder.

Most of downtown Philly was packed Sunday evening, with celebrants braving the cold weather. Adults, elderly fans, children and even infants were out to share the win.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/02/floridas-ban-on-ex-felons-voting-is-unconstitutional-and-biased-federal-judge-rules/?utm_term=.435f54aad9dc

In a blistering decision that could impact the 2018 midterm elections, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that Florida’s system for barring former felons from voting is unconstitutional and potentially tainted by racial, political or religious bias.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blasted the state panel led by Florida’s governor that decides whether to restore voting rights to people who have completed their sentences, saying their process is arbitrary and exceedingly slow.

“In Florida, elected, partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards,” Walker wrote. “The question now is whether such a system passes constitutional muster. It does not.”

“A person convicted of a crime may have long ago exited the prison cell and completed probation,” the judge continued in the 43-page order. “Her voting rights, however, remain locked in a dark crypt. Only the state has the key — but the state has swallowed it.”

The judge did not rule on how the issue should be remedied — he will hold hearings on that in mid-February — but he said the voter restoration system must be changed as soon as possible.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/news/economy/india-modicare-healthcare-program-largest/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom

In India, they're already calling it "Modicare."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's latest blockbuster policy initiative is an ambitious plan to give hundreds of millions of people greater access to hospitals.

The government said Thursday it plans to cover hospital treatment costs of up to 500,000 rupees ($7,800) per year for 100 million "poor and vulnerable" families. That's more than 15 times the amount poor families in India can currently claim from the government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley estimated that around 500 million people will benefit from the program.

If the program is fully taken up, it would cost close to $780 billion, a huge sum for India's $2.4 trillion economy.

"India cannot realize its demographic dividend without its citizens being healthy," Jaitley said, referring to the country's large young population. "The government is steadily but surely progressing towards the goal of universal health coverage," he added, during a speech presenting his annual budget.

Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How ‘Fat Leonard’ infiltrated the Navy’s floating headquarters in Asia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/leaks-feasts-and-sex-parties-how-fat-leonard-infiltrated-the-navys-floating-headquarters-in-asia/2018/01/23/4d31555c-efdd-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_blueridge-804am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2081ed4502ff



As the flagship for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge plays a critical role in national security by overseeing all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The venerable warship is the Navy’s second-oldest active-duty vessel and has survived the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea.

But there is one foreign threat against which the Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless for many years: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as “Fat Leonard.”

In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department has charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor who served on the Blue Ridge with taking bribes from or lying about their ties to Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports.

For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Francis systematically infiltrated the Blue Ridge to a degree that is only now coming into focus, more than four years after the defense contractor’s arrest, according to the documents from federal court and the Navy, as well as interviews with Navy officials and associates of Francis.

Prosecutors say nine sailors from the 7th Fleet flagship leaked classified information about ship movements and other secrets to Francis, a Malaysian citizen, making the Blue Ridge perhaps the most widely compromised U.S. military headquarters of the modern era.