herding cats
herding cats's JournalSerbian police arrest man with Syrian passport matching Paris attacker's
Source: The Guardian
Serbian police have arrested a man carrying a Syrian passport with the same details as one found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers, police sources told the Guardian.
The passport bears the same name and details – but a different photograph – as the document found near one of the men who attacked the Stade de France.
French and Belgian intelligence knew Paris attackers had jihadi backgrounds
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Serbian officials said that they believe both passports are fake, but added that they are working with French investigators to establish the origin of the documents.
French police found a passport in the name of Ahmad Almohammad, 25, near the body of one of the men who attacked France’s national football stadium on Friday.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/serbian-police-arrest-man-with-syrian-passport-matching-paris-attackers
If you're interested in the 6 year old boy shot by police in La. you may want to read this.
State investigators conceded on Thursday that local police officers had fired the shots that killed a small boy in Marksville, Louisiana, and disavowed an earlier explanation for why the officers deployed their guns.
The boy, Jeremy Mardis, died on Tuesday night after police shot into a car driven by his father, Chris Few. On Thursday, Colonel Michael Edmonson, head of the Louisiana state police, denied earlier reports that Few had been reversing his car toward the officers, who then had to defend themselves. “No. I didn’t say that,” he told the Guardian. “That didn’t come from me.”
At a press conference, Edmonson initially described the shooting as “an exchange of gunfire”, but later clarified that only the officers had shot, and that investigators had found no gun in Few’s car. Officials had previously declined to confirm whether officer gunfire was responsible for Mardis’s death.
The Counted: people killed by police in the United States in 2015 – interactive
The Guardian is counting the people killed by US law enforcement agencies this year. Read their stories and contribute to our ongoing, crowdsourced project
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Edmonson also said video footage of the incident does exist, but that investigators have not reviewed it. He added that the officers involved – there are four – had so far refused to speak with state police investigators. Police have not released the names of the involved officers.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/louisiana-police-deny-car-reversing-six-year-old-shot
Harvard law professor Larry Lessig says he's running for president
Source: The Guardian
The Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig said on Sunday his presidential exploratory committee had reached the $1m benchmark he said would trigger a formal White House bid.
The Democrat announced his fundraising total in an interview on ABC’s This Week.
Lessig said he was running to address campaign finance reform, voting rights issues and “political gerrymandering”.
Should he achieve his agenda as president, the 54-year-old South Dakota native promises to resign and let his vice-president take over. He declined to name potential vice-presidential picks when asked during the interview.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/06/larry-lessig-presidental-candidate-2016
He's a good professor, I don't know how he'd be as a politician.
Judge Declares Mistrial For Police Officer Who Killed Jonathan Ferrell
Source: NBC
A judge in North Carolina on Friday declared a mistrial in a police officer's 2013 killing of an unarmed former college football player.
That means that the voluntary manslaughter charge against Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Randall "Wes" Kerrick remains open, leaving it to prosecutors to decide whether to seek another trial.
And it leaves the family of Jonathan Ferrell, who was shot death by Kerrick following a Sept. 14, 2013 traffic accident, without any sense of closure.
The shooting unfolded after Ferrell crawled from his wrecked car and staggered to a nearby house for help. A woman inside called 911 to report a possible break-in. Kerrick and two other officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded to the scene.
Police dashcam footage showed officers pointing Tasers at him, at which point Ferrell ran. Kerrick, who'd been an officer for three years, stood in his path. He shouted for Ferrell to get on the ground, then shot Ferrell 10 times. Kerrick said he feared Ferrell was going to hurt him when he opened fire.
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-declares-mistrial-police-killing-jonathan-ferrell-n414001
Ellen Page Grills Ted Cruz About LGBT Rights At Iowa State Fair w/video
In video posted online by ABC News, Page, clad in a hat and sunglasses, asks Cruz about LGBT discrimination and rights.
"What about the question about LGBT people being fired for being gay-trans?" Page asked the Republican.
"What we’re seeing right now, we’re seeing Bible-believing Christians being persecuted for living according to their faith," Cruz said.
The candidate tried to shut down the impromptu interview by saying he didn't want to have a "back-and-forth debate," but the "Juno" star soldiered on.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-ellen-page-iowa-state-fair
First wolf pack in decades spotted in Northern California
Source: Washington Post
California has its first wolf pack since the state’s gray wolf population went extinct in 1924.
State and federal authorities announced Thursday that a remote camera captured photos earlier this month of two adults and five pups in southeastern Siskiyou County.
They were named the Shasta pack for nearby Mount Shasta.
The pack was discovered four years after the famous Oregon wandering wolf OR-7 first reached Northern California.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/first-wolf-pack-in-decades-spotted-in-northern-california/2015/08/20/41cc036a-4774-11e5-9f53-d1e3ddfd0cda_story.html
Costco and CP Foods face lawsuit over alleged slavery in prawn supply chain
Source: The Guardian
Three California law firms are seeking an injunction to stop the US retail chain Costco selling prawns unless they are labelled as the produce of slavery.
The firms have filed a class action lawsuit against Costco and its Thai seafood supplier, alleging that Costco knowingly sold prawns from a supply chain tainted by slavery.
The claim, lodged in the federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, alleges that Costco has for several years bought and resold farmed prawns from the leading Thai food group CP Foods, and other companies, that have sourced the raw material for their feed from ships manned by slaves.
The plaintiff in the class action is a California resident, Monica Sud, who has bought prawns from the membership-based wholesale grocer, but the class action potentially affects millions of customers in California, America’s most populous state.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/19/costco-cp-foods-lawsuit-alleged-slavery-prawn-supply-chain
UPDATE: Rosie O'Donnell Says Her 17-Year-Old Daughter, Chelsea, FOUND.
UPDATE:
Rosie O'Donnell's 17-year-old daughter Chelsea has been found, she announced on Twitter on Tuesday evening, hours after announcing that she was missing.
"Chelsea has been found and is safe in police custody -- thank u all for the help and light #missingchildren," she wrote late Tuesday.
O'Donnell's rep also told ABC News that “Rosie wants to thank everyone for their help, especially the South Nyack, N.Y., and Barnegat Light, N.J., police departments."
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/rosie-odonnell-daughter-chelsea-found/story?id=33158499
Chelsea O'Donnell was last seen a week ago, the TV personality said in a post to her website. She said the girl "stopped taking her medicine and is in need of medical attention," and was last seen with her therapy dog.
Police were looking for Chelsea O'Donnell in the New York suburbs. Rosie O'Donnell has a home in Nyack, police there said.
"Chelsea, like millions of people, lives with mental illness," said Cindi Berger, a spokeswoman for Rosie O'Donnell. "It has been a difficult road for Chelsea and her family and they just want her back safe."
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Anyone with information on the girl's whereabouts was asked to call 845-358-0206
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rosie-odonnell-says-her-17-year-old-daughter-chelsea-missing-n411846
Hopefully she'll be found soon now that the word is getting out.
Krugman: Republicans Against Retirement
The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing.
But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program — and what Mr. Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all. Despite the political momentum coming from the G.O.P.’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security quickly crashed and burned. Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is, and don’t want it cut.
It’s remarkable, then, that most of the Republicans who would be president seem to be lining up for another round of punishment. In particular, they’ve been declaring that the retirement age — which has already been pushed up from 65 to 66, and is scheduled to rise to 67 — should go up even further.
Thus, Jeb Bush says that the retirement age should be pushed back to “68 or 70”. Scott Walker has echoed that position. Marco Rubio wants both to raise the retirement age and to cut benefits for higher-income seniors. Rand Paul wants to raise the retirement age to 70 and means-test benefits. Ted Cruz wants to revive the Bush privatization plan.
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/opinion/republicans-against-retirement.html
China explosions: death toll rises to 50 as troops dispatched to assist cleanup
Source: The Guardian
Elite military units trained to deal with chemical, nuclear and biological disasters have been dispatched to the site of a deadly explosion in northern China, where fires still smouldered in a landscape of destruction more than a day after the original devastating blasts.
At least 50 deaths have been confirmed and 701 people admitted to hospital with injuries – 71 of those said to be “severe” – after a fire at warehouse containing “dangerous chemicals” sparked a series of blasts on Wednesday night.
Beijing vowed to deploy “every resource available” to help survivors, as environment groups warned that some of the substances handled near the site of the blast were both toxic and explosive, and said the government needed to keep people informed about risks of pollution.
Four vehicles carrying more than 200 soldiers trained to deal with nuclear, biological and chemical catastrophes were dispatched to Tianjin, which is around 100 miles from Beijing.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/13/tianjin-explosions-china-sends-troops-cleanup
The series of explosions in the port city of Tianjin – which killed at least 50 and injured hundreds – could leave the region facing huge environmental impacts, according to an analysis of information from the local environmental monitoring station.
The explosion is the latest – and by far the most dramatic – in a series of seven chemical plant blasts so far this year including explosions in the provinces of Jiangsu, Fujian and Shandong according to media reports. There are also reports this evening of a further – smaller – explosion at a boiler factory in northern China.
The Tianjin Tanggu Environmental Monitoring Station data suggests hazardous chemicals stored by the company include sodium cyanide (NaCN), toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and calcium carbide (CaC2), all of which are extremely hazardous to health.
Sodium cyanide is highly toxic whilst toluene diisocyanate and calcium carbide react violently with water – a further potential hazard with rain forecast for the region over the next 24 hours.
http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/08/13/tianjin-latest-chinese-chemical-plant-explosion-risks-massive-health-impacts/
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