Mainstream News

Yemeni journalist who reported U.S. drone strike released from jail

"A Yemeni journalist who was kept in prison for years at the apparent request of the Obama administration has been released in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, according to local reports. Abdulelah Haider Shaye was imprisoned in 2010, after reporting that an attack on a suspected al-Qaida training camp in southern Yemen for which the Yemeni government claimed responsibility had actually been carried out by the United States. Shaye had visited the site and discovered pieces of cruise missiles and cluster bombs not found in Yemen’s arsenal, according to a Jeremy Scahill dispatch in the Nation." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYemeni journalist who reported U.S. drone strike released from jail

Bloomberg vetoes bill to halt New York’s stop-and-frisk policy

"New York City Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday vetoed two measures meant to curb the city’s controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy, setting up a likely showdown with the City Council. One measure would create an independent inspector general to monitor the New York City Police Department. The other would expand the definition of racial profiling and allow people who believe they have been profiled to sue police in state court. Opponents of stop-and-frisk, among them minority groups, civil libertarians and some of the Democratic mayoral candidates, have said police officers disproportionately target young black and Hispanic men." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBloomberg vetoes bill to halt New York’s stop-and-frisk policy

Congress moves towards arming Syrian rebels

"President Barack Obama’s plan to provide vetted Syrian rebels with weapons and strategic military aid has gained traction in Congress, US lawmakers said Tuesday. The United States is currently providing humanitarian and non-lethal military aid to rebel groups battling the regime of strongman Bashar al-Assad. Obama’s administration promised an expansion of military aid to Syria’s rebel forces in June after accusing the regime of using chemical weapons, but such aid has yet to be disbursed. Lawmakers have been split on the proposal, but on Monday House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers said a 'consensus' had been reached." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCongress moves towards arming Syrian rebels

Experiment finds D.C. residents are the least honest Americans

"George Washington famously said he could not tell a lie, but people in the city that bears his name don’t seem to feel so conflicted. One in five in the US capital failed to drop a suggested $1 in an honor box when they helped themselves to tea at unmanned kiosks set up by Honest Tea, a beverage company. In a statement, Honest Tea said it set up 61 such kiosks around the country, including at least one in every state plus the District of Columbia, over 11 days in July. The most honest folks were in Alabama and Hawaii, where everyone paid without exception, followed by Indiana and Maine with a 99 percent honesty score." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingExperiment finds D.C. residents are the least honest Americans

How do smartphones reveal shoppers’ movements?

"Most devices send 'probe requests' akin to a town crier shouting out the names of networks which the device has previously connected to, so that a nearby base-station that matches any of these requests can respond. Place several Wi-Fi base-stations in a shop, then, and you can pick up these probe requests, extract the device IDs, trilaterate the positions of the devices sending them, and thus track the movements of individual shoppers, seeing which racks or displays they stop at, and what paths they follow through the store. This is arguably just the latest development in the well-established field of 'retail science'. This was once done using video cameras." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHow do smartphones reveal shoppers’ movements?

UN group warns of ‘significant’ cybersecurity vulnerabilities in mobile phone technology

"A United Nations group that advises nations on cybersecurity plans to send out an alert about significant vulnerabilities in mobile phone technology that could potentially enable hackers to remotely attack at least half a billion phones. The bug, discovered by German firm, allows hackers to remotely gain control of and also clone certain mobile SIM cards. Hackers could use compromised SIMs to commit financial crimes or engage in electronic espionage, according to Berlin’s Security Research Labs, which will describe the vulnerabilities at the Black Hat hacking conference that opens in Las Vegas on July 31." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUN group warns of ‘significant’ cybersecurity vulnerabilities in mobile phone technology

Tax watchdog: IRS travel costs are ‘excessive’

"A handful of Internal Revenue Service officials spent most of their time traveling for work in 2011 and 2012 and amassed thousands of dollars in seemingly excessive costs for transportation, hotels and meals, the tax-collecting agency’s watchdog said in a report on Tuesday. 12 IRS officials claimed more than $60,000 a year in travel expenses for fiscal year 2011 and nine executives surpassed that figure in 2012, mostly in travel to Washington, said the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the IRS watchdog. Some executives traveled for more than 80 percent of their working days in the past two years, the report said." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTax watchdog: IRS travel costs are ‘excessive’

Doctor returns Viet Cong soldier’s bone 40 years after amputation

"The arm was handed back to ex-soldier Nguyen Quang Hung, who now plans to use it to claim a war veteran’s pension. 'After some research, it turns out that you can take bones in your suitcase,' said US doctor Sam Axelrad, adding that he packed the arm into his luggage — not his carry-on — 'and it went all the way through with no problems.' 'You can’t send a body without authorisation, but bones, yes,' he added. Some three million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers died during the war, which also claimed the lives of almost 60,000 American soldiers before ending in 1975 with Vietnam’s reunification." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDoctor returns Viet Cong soldier’s bone 40 years after amputation

Austrian children’s home charged with ‘decades’ of physical and mental abuse

"Children were physically and mentally abused for decades at a former Austrian children’s home and city authorities knew about it but did nothing, a commission charged with investigating the allegations said Wednesday. The violence went beyond the severe education techniques of the time and clearly violated regulations on children’s homes which forbid beatings, Helige said, confirming that rapes also took place. Unusually, all files from the home were destroyed after its closure so the report relied heavily on interviews with some 220 people, including former staff and children from the Wilhelminenberg home." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAustrian children’s home charged with ‘decades’ of physical and mental abuse

Nursing home staff allegedly abused elderly Alzheimer’s patients

"Twenty-one current and former employees of a nursing home for Alzheimer’s patients in Georgia, including its owner, face a total of more than 70 criminal charges for allegedly abusing elderly patients, authorities said Tuesday. The abuses included employees restraining patients with bed sheets and subjecting them to 'inhumane and undignified conditions' at Alzheimer’s Care of Commerce, about 60 miles north of Atlanta, according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In 2012, a Congressional report showed that patients suffer abuse or neglect in one in three nursing homes in the United States." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNursing home staff allegedly abused elderly Alzheimer’s patients