The Raw Story

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Thursday, 16 October 2014

Obama to Send Reserve Troops to Fight Ebola: White House

© Reuters/Scott EisenObama has authorized the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to use reserve and National Guard troops in response to the Ebola spread in West Africa Washington - US President Barack Obama has authorized the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to use reserve and National Guard troops in the United States' response to the Ebola spread in West Africa, the White House said."I hereby determine that it is...

'Shot in the heart': Israeli army kills 13yo Palestinian boy

© Reuters / Abed Omar Qusini A Palestinian boy was shot in the chest point-blank and later died amid a confrontation between Israeli forces and stone-throwing youths in a village of the occupied West Bank, according to local media and medical sources.Bahaa Badr, 13, was fatally shot by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as the troops made their way to Beit Liqya village in the West Bank, located near the border with Israel, Reuters reported citing...

WikiLeaks: US pushes to extend drug monopolies in secret proposed trade deal

On Thursday, transparency group WikiLeaks published a draft chapter from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement which 12 countries, including the US, have been negotiating in near total privacy for years.According to the secret-spilling organization, the latest leaked chapter — an excerpt from May 2014 detailing proposed intellectual property, or IP, rules — indicates that American trade reps want to maintain a monopoly on life-saving...

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency: The 'transparent' spy organization you probably never heard of

© fas.org The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a little-known organization under the Defense Department's purview that provides geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to the spy community. Now it is moving from providing maps to focusing on analysis.The NGA's mission is to provide "timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security," its website says. "From the discovery of atrocities in Kosovo, to support...

Early October snowfall on the Big Island of Hawaii

Here is something you don't see every day, a satellite image showing a sizable amount of snow cover on the big island of Hawaii.While snowfall on the big island is nothing new, commonly seen on the mountains on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, (top and bottom arrows respectively in the photo) seeing snow this early in the season on the mounatins is somewhat rare. © McIDAS McIDAS images of GOES-15 6.5 µm water vapor channel data showed an upper-level low...

Alexa's control of information hits Drudge, WUWT, mostly favors leftist news sites over conservative news sites

As many WUWT readers know, I have been using alexa.com for quite sometime to gauge the performance of WUWT. Reader "Pat" brought this recent strange disparity to my attention. When you see things like the Drudge report plummet and MSNBC soar, you know immediately that something isn't right:Those who run watchdog news websites are scratching their heads and trying to make sense of the latest data released by a California company that measures website...

Is Meditation really worth it? Totally!

First of all, understand that "meditation" is a catchall term for a lot of different mental activities, many of which have nothing to do with sitting cross-legged on the floor and saying ."There are thousands of different types of meditation," says Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and author of . But while meditative practices come in all shapes and styles, Newberg says nearly all of them have at least...

Video shows official without any protective gear loading Dallas Ebola patient onto plane

© MSNBC Images emerged Wednesday of officials loading the second Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola onto a plane headed for Atlanta to receive treatment at Emory Hospital - and Americans quickly noticed something very strange about the scene.Among several workers wearing hazmat suits on the runway of Dallas Love Field was a man wearing plain clothes and no apparent protective gear.Plain Clothes Man at #Ebola Scene Perplexes Viewers http://t.co/oWkDj6Pe0xhttp://ift.tt/1wKieEh...

Obama 'hugged and kissed' Ebola nurses

© Reuters/Kevin LamarqueU.S. President Barack Obama holds a meeting with cabinet agencies coordinating the government's Ebola response, in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington October 15, 2014. President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that the US response to the Ebola outbreak is effective and that the chances of the deadly virus taking hold in the United States are "extremely low."Concerns about health protocols have grown since two...

Romanian politician calls for the army to help control bear population

© Mihai Barbu/CorbisBears’ normal diet of nuts and acorns has been scarce leading to more frequent cases of bears venturing into towns in search of food. In the depths of Transylvania, Romania, a war against one of Europe's largest brown bear populations is looming.Following a string of cases involving damage to private property from bears in recent months, Csaba Borboly, a senior politician from the Transylvanian region, has called for the army...

Floods in North Jutland, Denmark after 100 mm of rain in just one day

© Nordjyllands PolitiCollapsed road after floods in North Jutland, Denmark. Heavy rain over the last 24 hours has brought flooding to parts of North Jutland (Nordjylland) in Denmark.North Jutland police are reporting a road near Sindal has been completely closed after parts of it collapsed as a result of the heavy rain and flooding.Other roads, including the E39 motorway, as well as parts of the railway network have also been badly affected. Earlier...

Passenger train collides with freight train in northwest Arkansas injuring 44, including five critically

© KNWA/KFTAEmergency responders were at the scene in Washington County and transported 31 to local hospitals, 5NewsOnline.com reported. A passenger train on a sight-seeing trip collided with a freight train Thursday in northwest Arkansas injuring 44, including five critically, THV11 reported. The incident occurred at about 10:30 a.m. and involved four passenger cars carrying 44 passengers and six crew members. Emergency responders were at the scene...

Arkansas juvenile detainees locked in controversial device 'when verbal deescalation is not working'

© Photos obtained via Freedom of Information ActScott Tanner, Juvenile Detention Ombudsman, experiences the WRAP restraint system in the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in Danville, AR. Juvenile detention facilities across the state are coming under fire for using a disturbing restraint device that some are calling "torture."The device is known as the "WRAP" system. According to state officials, the device is used to restrain minor detainees...

Propaganda 101 - How the Pentagon is trying to rewrite Vietnam war history

© Wikimedia Commons In case you weren't aware, the Pentagon is set to roll out a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. Personally, it's hard to get excited about commemorating an event that led to the death of over 58,000 American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese, particularly since much of it was the direct result of well documented lies and deception, such as the Gulf of Tomkin incident.What's worse, the Pentagon intends...

Former FSB chief: U.S. using old anti-Soviet policy to break up Russian Federation

© RIA Novosti/ Said TcarnaevRussian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. The current turmoil in Ukraine and the military conflicts in Georgia and the Caucasus are a direct result of the anti-Russian policy of the US administration, claims the former head of Russia's Federal Security Service.Nikolai Patrushev who headed the FSB from 1999 until 2008 said in an interview with the Russian government daily that intelligence analysts established...

The psychopathy virus is spreading: Rape, sex offenses spike in England and Wales

© Reuters / Navesh Chitrakar The number of recorded rapes and sexual offences has dramatically risen in the past 12 months, despite overall crime levels in the UK falling to their lowest since the 1980s.Data recorded by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed a 29 percent increase in the number of recorded rape cases last year, while the number of overall crimes filed as sex offences rose by 21 percent to 22,116.Additionally, the ONS data...

The not so surprising benefits of smoking

© WikipediaVan Gogh’s Skull With A Burning Cigarette So we all know and are well aware of the effects of smoking. In fact, governments are working hard to reduce the amount of places where you can smoke. That still doesn't mean there aren't advantages to lighting up everyone once in a while.In fact, science is showing that short-term exposure to cigarette smoke can have surprising benefits. From mental stimulation to physical transformation, smokers...

Psychopathic warmongers in Washington hunt Russia, ISIS, and Ebola at the same time

© Reuters/Ints Kalnins The US Secretary of Defense Secretary categorized Russia as a global threat - much like Obama in his UN address last month - in the same breath as Ebola and Islamic State.For anybody who took at face value the Obama administration's past commitment for a "reset" with Russia, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's speech on Wednesday should dispel those grand illusions once and for all.But first, there's the deadly Ebola virus...

Spain imposes health emergency at Madrid airport after passenger shows symptoms of Ebola

© AP Photo/ Daniel Ochoa de OlzaThe pilot of the plane alerted the airport administration to the chill, headache and malaise of one of the passengers after which a doctor examined the passenger and prescribed hospital tests for possible Ebola virus contraction. The government of Spain imposed a health emergency situation on Thursday afternoon in Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport after a passenger flying from Paris to Madrid was suspected of having...

New legal precedent? Parents may be liable for children's defamatory social media posts

© Reuters / Jorge Silva The parents of two children who posted defamatory comments about a fellow student in a fake Facebook account are heading to court, which will determine whether parents should be liable for their children's internet activity.The parents of seventh-grade students Dustin Athearn and Melissa Snodgrass learned this the hard way after their children created a fake Facebook page under the name of fellow student Alexandria (Alex)...

Justice for sale

© A Little Reality Blogspot At first glance, Lanell Williams-Yulee's legal fight against the Florida Bar has an appealingly underdogish aura about it. In 2009, Williams-Yulee declared her candidacy for county court judge in Hillsborough County, launching her campaign with a mass-mail fundraising letter that asked for "an early contribution" to help her "raise the initial funds." Plenty of campaigns start with this kind of gentle panhandling, of...

Corporate craziness: Apple and Facebook will pay female employees to freeze their eggs

© Ben Birchall/PA Wire via AP FileEmbryos placed onto a CryoLeaf ready for instant freezing Two Silicon Valley giants now offer women a game-changing perk: Apple and Facebook will pay for employees to freeze their eggs.Facebook recently began covering egg freezing, and Apple will start in January, spokespeople for the companies told NBC News. The firms appear to be the first major employers to offer this coverage for non-medical reasons."Having...
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