News You Can Use

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Texas student arrested after refusing to remove ‘gang-related’ rosary

A 14-year-old boy was arrested at a Texas middle school football game after he refused to comply with officers and remove the rosary around his neck that was in violation of the school’s dress code.

Jacob Herrera was attending the Wednesday night game at Sam Houston Middle School in Amarillo, when an officer asked him to remove the rosary from around his neck or conceal it under his clothes, a local CBS affiliate reported.

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Europe has 421 million fewer birds than 30 years ago

LONDON (AFP) -
Europe has an estimated 421 million fewer birds than three decades ago, and current treatment of the environment is unsustainable for many common species, a study released on Monday said.

The population crash is related to modern farming methods and the loss and damage of habitats, according to the study published in science journal Ecology Letters.

"This is a warning from birds throughout Europe. It is clear that the way we are managing the environment is unsustainable for many of our most familiar species," said Richard Gregory of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which co-led the study.

[BroJones]

More from the Seattle Times on smash-and-grabs and total police staying away (not helping):

What I learned last weekend: If your car gets broken into, there’s probably no point in calling the police because they won’t do anything.

This turns out to be true even if you direct police to the thieves’ van, with the perpetrators sitting in it holding your stolen stuff in plain view. The police will tell you to forget it, and call your insurance instead.

Last weekend I was at my son’s soccer game at Woodland Park in Seattle. It was pouring, so we foolishly left a purse in the car. Someone smashed the driver’s side window and snatched the purse.

Because nobody saw the crime, the police told us just to file a report online.

When I got home, my kids, savvier navigators of the modern world than I am, had already tracked the thieves down using the GPS locator of an iPhone inside the stolen purse.

“They’re at a 7-Eleven on Aurora,” my daughter announced triumphantly.

So it was that last Saturday night I found myself slouched in a car in a parking lot on Aurora, eyeing my fellow Seattleites through the fogged windows. Which one of you stole my stuff? I figured there’d be clues, like a rundown car or someone acting shifty. But nobody looked like thieves. After a while, everybody did.

When the silver minivan parked next to us drove off, we could see our iPhone moving down the street on the Find My iPhone app. So we followed it to another parking lot, and again called the police.

We reported the make and model, the license plate and the location. But the dispatcher was dismissive. Go home and file an insurance claim, she said.

One purse with 80 bucks cash and an iPhone hardly rates an all-points bulletin. But when you’ve got the thieves trapped, the police still won’t come? The dispatcher said she would try.

So we sat there, waiting, watching the van from a distance. After an hour, I got frustrated and called the stolen phone. No answer, but the van drove off. So we gave chase again.

This time the dispatcher was furious. Not with the thieves or the police who never come. With us.

“Stop following them!” she ordered. “Pull over immediately. You’re going to get yourselves shot.”

This sounded ominous, plus she refused to send a squad car except to a fixed address. So I let my stolen stuff go. Eventually an officer did come (probably because the dispatcher told him we were nuts). He was sympathetic, but when I showed him where the thieves had gone — to the Fred Meyer parking lot in Greenwood — he said he couldn’t do much.

How about you go up to the minivan, do a knock and talk, and I’ll set off the iPhone alarm, I suggested. He said I couldn’t come along due to liability — and he wouldn’t take my phone to set off the alarm himself.

Later he called and said he hadn’t seen the van. So we drove to the Fred Meyer parking lot, and sure enough, there was the van. The thieves now knew we were following them — because one held our iPhone up to us and shook it, as if to say, “Here it is, come and get it!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or pull out a baseball bat. Fortunately for me, I did not bring a baseball bat. It was midnight. We drove home and seethed. The signal from the stolen iPhone had gone dead.

The next day when I called some glass-repair companies, no one blinked at this story. Happens every day, they said. Police never do anything. In fact, some thieves want you to track them, so they can try to sell your stolen stuff back to you. That’s how confident they are the police are no threat.

So the whole time we thought we were chasing, we were being lured.

There’s a silver lining, my glass repairman said. The glass-repair business is booming.

In the past two weeks, there were an astonishing 426 smash-and-grabs reported in Seattle. A few years back, we did a front-page story about how car prowls had become the city’s top crime, with 370 in a two-week period. My thieves — unlike me — are working in a growth industry.

Seattle police, I get that this is petty crime. It’s on me for leaving stuff in the car. There also was no proof who did the smash-and-grab, so even if you had come, it would have been tricky to charge them with anything.

But it doesn’t take a detective to see how punting an entire crime category over to the insurance industry could cause these types of nuisance crimes to spiral out of control. One warning sign: In Seattle, the more serious car thefts are up a whopping 44 percent this year versus last.

Can we at least start making these thieves feel a little heat? Especially when they’re served right up for you in a silver minivan?

Because I saw it with my own eyes out in that Fred Meyer parking lot: Right now, they’re just laughing at us.

This tends to invite vigilantism - when the police sit back and do nothing. Of course, at other times the police (TSA?) seem overly aggressive. Both cases, not respecting the honest citizens.

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This advice is the exact opposite of the D&C and modern prophets.

FLOTUS: NO MATTER WHO'S ON THE BALLOT, OUR COMMUNITY SHOULD ALWAYS VOTE FOR DEM TICKET

Monday on TV One, a cable channel who's programming is geared for African-American adults, first lady Michelle Obama told Roland Martin the candidate on the ballot and what they say or do should not matter to African-Americans because voting for a straight Democratic ticket best serves their communities.

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Dana Loesch Book Signing Canceled For Safety Reasons

Syndicated conservative radio host Dana Loesch canceled a book signing at Texas Christian University over the weekend because the store was located in a gun-free zone. Her reasoning: It wasn’t safe. Security wasn’t provided and authorities prohibited her from packing heat.

. . .

A previous incident made her wary. A man came to a signing ranting about how much he hated her and her boss, Glenn Beck. When ordered to leave, he punched the promotional materials and yelled at store employees and people in line.

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IMMIGRATION LEADERS: NH FERTILE FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN GANGS, CRIME IF JEANNE SHAHEEN RE-ELECTED

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — If incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is re-elected, national immigration experts are sure of one thing: Families, children, and mothers in New Hampshire won’t be safe from looming crime from illegal aliens’ gangs—which are absolutely, law enforcement says, active in the region.

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Apple Has Been Accused Of 'Intercepting' iPhone Texts In Violation Of The Federal Wiretap Act

Three American consumers have filed a federal lawsuit against Apple, alleging that faults in iMessage, the iPhone's texting service, amount to wiretapping because iMessage "intercepts" and retains messages that should be delivered to Android users. (Download a PDF of the complaint here.)

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Local student suspended from school for what appears to be a harmless mistake

BEDFORD, OH (WOIO) -
Da'von Shaw is missing classes and assignments at Bedford High School because the school district decided to punish him rather than use his mistake as a teachable moment.

He had planned a demonstration for his tenth grade speech class. It had to do with eating a health breakfast.

He told us, “I put in the slogan an apple a day keeps the doctor away because it was first period.” He intended to show how he prepares his food. He brought apples, crasins, and a knife to cut the apples with, but the demonstration never happened.

“When I took out the knife the teacher then told me that I couldn't use it, so I didn't hesitate I just gave it to her,” said Da'von.

He continued with his other classes, but late in the day was suspended for five days. The suspension letter charged him with having a weapon at school.

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Cell phone signal interception a growing threat

BOISE -- Cell phone signal interception is a growing concern and is happening around the country, including right here in Idaho.

Millions of signals are sent to cell phone towers every second. Security specialist, Buzz Bruner, says some of those signals are being diverted. At the end of September an interception was detected in Idaho Falls.

"What's intercepting these calls is what's known as cell interceptors, which are virtually the size of a suitcase or briefcase," said Bruner.

They're called Stingray devices. Defense contractor Harris Corporation is the biggest provider. A spokesperson for the company says the devices are only issued to law enforcement and the government.

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GCHQ chief accuses US tech giants of becoming terrorists' 'networks of choice'

Privacy has never been “an absolute right”, according to the new director of GCHQ, who has used his first public intervention since taking over at the helm of Britain’s surveillance agency to accuse US technology companies of becoming “the command and control networks of choice” for terrorists.

[BroJones]

Although I don't live near St Louis or Ferguson, Mo, I follow somewhat the ongoing saga --
This from today:

FERGUSON, Mo. (CBS St. Louis) – Since the Aug. 9 police shooting death of Michael Brown, protests have taken over the small city of Ferguson, causing tensions to run high in the community. Nearly four months after his death, protests still continue to happen with many activists calling for Ferguson officer Darren Wilson to face charges.

A decision is expected by a grand jury sometime in November. Many expect that if Wilson is not indicted, the worst situation that could unfold in Ferguson could be similar to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that happened after Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in a trial regarding a videotaped police beating of Rodney King.

“The LA riots with Rodney King is what should be expected to happen in Ferguson,” said Jeannine Bell, a professor of law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “Brown’s death was very detrimental to the community. The individuals who are protesting now have suggested in speaking to the press given the ongoing protests in Ferguson that that could happen.”

Bell, who is a criminal procedure expert and has written about police crimes and hate crimes, explained that the situation in Ferguson between the community and law enforcement suggests a number of things about problematic inequalities.

“This situation has brought to light the differences between police and residents which suggest that there were preexisting inequalities in Ferguson,” Bell said. “This situation is a marker for what is happening in other local cities across the country.

Clarissa Hayward, an associate professor in the political science department at Washington University in St. Louis, explained that it’s hard to predict what to expect in Ferguson if Wilson isn’t indicted.

“I think he’s unlikely to be indicted, based on the leaks in recent weeks,” Hayward said. “There’s been much apprehension about that. The local police have purchased more riot gear and some of the local school districts have requested that the annoucement not come on a school day. What I have observed about the protesters is that they are peaceful day in and day out. I think we need to be very careful about using the word “riot”, which suggests that’s not the case. But could see violence following the announcement of the grand jury decision? Yes, that’s a real possibility.”

In the days following Brown’s death, a number of local business were looted, Ferguson police officers approached protesters in military-style gear and equipment creating what some called a threatening presence in the city, and a few members of the media were pepper-sprayed and arrested by officers. Bell stated that all of those incidents and others that have occurred in Ferguson suggest something bigger.

“Now there have been a wide variety of situations in which troubling events have happened since Brown’s death,” Bell explained. “And they suggest a perfect storm could happen if the system in Ferguson, meaning the prosecutor’s office, does what it needs to do to run interference in preventing a huger situation. There is not much to suggest that behind the scenes, the system is doing that.”

Bell, who is a Neizer Faculty Fellow at IU, suggested that the police department in Ferguson is not doing all that it can do to alleviate the tensions in the community.

“When the Justice Department had to tell the police department to not wear arm bands saying ‘I Am Darren Wilson,’ that suggested a lot,” Bell said. “Officers wearing that band could have made the situation in that city worse. It’s not surprising that that would make things worse. You’re announcing to the crowd that you’re like someone who shot and killed someone who was not armed. In the ability of the department to handle something like that doesn’t suggest they are doing all they can to alleviate tensions locally.” ...

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DC election board reports theft of voter books

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Obamacare is in hiding until after the election: Column

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration sent an email to the insurance companies participating in Obamacare telling them to keep their mouths shut about the testing of the new health law's enrollment system saying, that unlike last year, they would require "all testers (the insurance companies) to acknowledge the confidentiality of this process" before they would be allowed to participate. The administration reminded insurers that their confidentiality agreement with the Obama administration means that insurance executives "will not use, disclose, post to a public forum, or in any way share Test Data with any person or entity, included but not limited to media..." This includes any "results of this testing exercise and any information describing or otherwise relating to the performance or functionality" of the Obamacare enrollment and eligibility system.

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Hartford Voters Report Slew of Problems at Polls

Hartford voters reported a slew of problems at the four polling locations first thing on Tuesday morning — with no monitors at at least one site and voter registration books missing from others.
Some callers said lines were building and would-be voters gave up without casting a ballot to get to work on time.
The moderator at the Hartford Seminary polling location in Hartford said they did not have a list for registered voters to check in. Instead, each voter was writing his or her name, address and phone number down on a blank piece of paper and then received a ballot.
One of the four polling places to encounter problems was the senior center on Maple Avenue.
The moderator got very ill and was rushed to the hospital around 3 p.m. on Monday, so they needed a backup moderator, Olga Vázquez, the Democratic Registrar of Voters, said. There was also a computer glitch and the voter list printout did not happen in a timely fashion, which affected four polling stations.

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Scientists see mechanism for spontaneous HIV 'cure'

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A message to voters?

Meteor streaks over eastern US Monday night

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Marijuana profits up in smoke under IRS rules

Voters in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, D.C., will decide Tuesday whether to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. But any new pot shops that voters approve may not be able to survive a drug war-era tax code that already threatens many businesses in Colorado and Washington state.

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Attkisson: Hacking Software Was from FBI, CIA, DIA or NSA

On "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, Attkisson said that she received inside information from government-connected sources that she had been hacked.

She contacted a computer forensics expert, who concluded that sophisticated intrusions had taken place, and the proprietary software on her computers was a type used by either the FBI, CIA, DIA or NSA, four government agencies.

Other experts and even a consultant hired by CBS later confirmed both the extent and sophistication of the hacking.

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Doctors Warn Sitting Disease Could Become The New Smoking

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Doctors are studying a new disorder related to the dangers of sitting too long at work, and the way it could kill you.
Liza Ramirez is an office assistant in a doctor’s office where everything is conveniently within reach from her seat.
“It makes it more efficient for patient care to be in one spot,” she said.

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It’s Currency War! – And Japan Has Fired The First Shot

In a surprise move on Friday, the Bank of Japan dramatically increased the size of the quantitative easing program that it has been conducting. This sent Japanese stocks soaring and the Japanese yen plunging. The yen had already fallen by about 11 percent against the dollar over the last year before this announcement, and news of the BOJ's surprise move caused the yen to collapse to a seven-year low.

Essentially what the Bank of Japan has done is declare a currency war. And, as you will see below, in every currency war there are winners and there are losers. Let's just hope that global financial markets do not get shredded in the crossfire.

Without a doubt, the Japanese are desperate. Their economic decline has lasted for decades, and their debt levels are off the charts. In such a situation, printing more money seems like such an easy solution. But as history has shown us, wild money printing always ends badly. Just remember what happened in the Weimar Republic and in Zimbabwe

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BOMBSHELL MEMO: Jeanne Shaheen Conspired With White House Insider On IRS Targeting Scandal

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was principally involved in a plot with Lois Lerner and President Barack Obama’s political appointee at the IRS to lead a program of harassment against conservative nonprofit groups during the 2012 election, according to letters exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) did not want to publicly release 2012 correspondences exchanged between the IRS and Jeanne Shaheen at her personal Washington office: the agency delayed releasing the information to a major conservative super PAC multiple times, even threatening to see the super PAC in court, according to emails.

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NC DENR to ask Hagan company for information

North Carolina Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources John Skvarla on Monday asked his staff to seek more information about a 2010 energy grant from the company co-owned by the husband of Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan.

Skvarla’s request came in response to a memo from his staff. It involved a $250,644 grant to JDC Manufacturing, which is co-owned by Charles “Chip” Hagan III, and also involves work that Hagan’s son, Tilden, did installing solar panels for JDC under the grant.

The unsigned memo questioned whether the grant involved “self-dealing,” said DENR spokesman Drew Elliot, who drafted the Oct. 27 document with the department’s legal staff.

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Obama Admin To Poor Africans: Choose Food Or Marriage

This Tuesday, the American people will go to the polls to decide who will represent them in Congress during the last two years of the Obama presidency. While the economy, immigration, the Ebola virus, ISIS, abortion, and same-sex relationships have dominated many House and Senate races, voters should consider one other issue: The Obama administration’s blackmail of the poor and starving in exchange for social engineering.

Across Africa, millions of people face starvation, war, oppression, poverty, and death on a regular basis. The United States has long provided financial aid to many of the continent’s nations in order to help them survive and flourish.

Under the Obama administration, however, this worthy humanitarian effort has taken a backseat to sexual ideology by attaching aid to approval of gay marriage.

This is not a new policy. In 2011 President Obama issued a memorandum directing all U.S. embassies worldwide to promote LGBT rights, which he called “central to the United States commitment to promoting human rights.”

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FBI warns against homegrown terror threat

The FBI director also warned again that moves from Apple and Google to encrypt all customers' data would make it harder to track down those using social media to plot terror attacks.

"There should be no one in the United States above the law and... also no places within the United States that are beyond the law," he said, calling for greater debate on liberty and security.

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REPORT: DHS RELEASED CRIMINAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND MURDERERS IN TEXAS CITIES

AUSTIN, Texas -- Last month, records were produced showing that officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) misled Congress and the American people when they claimed that 2,200 undocumented immigrants released from detention facilities to save money were only "low-risk offenders who do not have serious criminal records." In fact, the released detainees included some who had been charged or convicted of serious, violent crimes, including kidnapping, sexual assault, drug trafficking, and homicide, and new records requested by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) include a list of zip codes where these detainees were released, including several in Texas.