The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Friday, 19 December 2014

Big brother watch: Police pre-crime algorithm uses social media posts against you in real-ime

We have finally reached the moment where Orwell's nightmare in 1984 meets the movie . We're living there right now.[embedded content]Did you know that any time a police officer pulls you over or responds to your 9-1-1 call, he or she is using a pre-crime algorithm which assigns you a color-coded threat score based not just on your criminal background but on everything including "flagged" purchases and all your social media posts which may include any comments that may be construed as "offensive?"The officer will receive your color coding - red,...

Non-profit hospitals are suing poor patients and seizing their wages

© Steve Hebert for ProPublicaNorthwest Financial Services first sued Keith and Katie Herie when they couldn't afford the $14,000 bill for Katie's emergency appendectomy. Since 2006, the Heries have had almost $20,000 takes from their wages to repay medical bills and still owe at least $26,000 with interest mounting. Some wealthy nonprofit hospitals are going after their low-income patients' wages.According to a new report by NPR and ProPublica,...

Are Russian economic wizards behind the ruble free fall?

The remaining BRICS - Brazil, India and South Africa - plus the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, Uzbekistan and considered for membership since September 2014 are also India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia, with Turkey also waiting in the wings - will also trade in their local currencies, detached from the dollar-based western casino scheme. A host of other nations...

Magnitude 5.7 strikes the Basse-Terre island in Guadeloupe

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the Basse-Terre island of the France's Guadeloupe archipelago in the Antilles on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.It said the quake's epicenter was located three miles (4.8 km)northwest of Lamentin on Basse-Terre and was 69.5 miles (111 km)deep. It struck at 3:49 p.m. (1949 GMT).Want something else to read? How about 'Grievous Censorship' By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed's...

Crowd erupts when cop beats handcuffed boy in New York

© pisaphotography/Shutterstock The cell phone video of Eric Garner may not have resulted in a trial for the police officers who choked him to death, but New Yorkers are still recording incidents of police using over-the-top force against African Americans.In a recent video recorded by an onlooker on the streets of New York City, several large uniformed cops have a young African-American boy subdued and pinned against a car, when a white plainclothes...

Heavy metal toxicity can ruin your health

To a greater or lesser degree, most of us are contaminated with heavy metals today - some seriously, some without ever knowing it. It is a subject that just doesn't cross our everyday minds and physicians are often not alert to the possibility of metal exposure such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. In fact, the chronic accumulation of toxic contaminants that may not achieve classic 'acute toxicity' thresholds levels receives little attention at all,...

Santa’s real workshop: the town in China that makes the world’s Christmas decorations

600 factories producing 60% of all decorations There’s red on the ceiling and red on the floor, red dripping from the window sills and red globules splattered across the walls. It looks like the artist Anish Kapoor has been let loose with his wax cannon again. But this, in fact, is what the making of Christmas looks like; this is the very heart of the real Santa’s workshop – thousands of miles from the North Pole, in the Chinese city of Yiwu.Our...

Mount Gamalama eruption sends ash and rocks 2 km into the sky, Indonesia

Mount Gamalama in North Maluku province of Indonesia erupted at 13:41 UTC on Thursday, December 18, 2014, sending ash and rocks 2 km into the sky and forcing the authorities to close an airport and issue warnings to planes. Nine people were injured while running to escape the eruption. One person is still unaccounted for, authorities said.Increased seismicity around the volcano was observed since 08:30 UTC. It then sharply increased at 13:09 UTC...

Pentagon’s Counter IED unit collecting intelligence on U.S. Companies

The Pentagon’s main arm for fighting improvised explosive devices engaged in unauthorized surveillance of U.S. citizens and companies and improperly collected intelligence from Afghan farmers when an analyst posed as a college student, according to an inspector general’s report released Thursday.The intelligence efforts by the Joint IED Defeat Organization — established to fight roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan — were found to violate executive...

Terror attacks prevented at Crimean Prosecutor's Office

Natalya Poklonskaya Two attempted terrorist attacks on the Crimean Prosecutor's Office have recently been prevented by members of the local People's Guard. So-called 'prosecutie' Natalia Poklonskaya has also had previous threats.Two members of the guard prevented a couple of terrorist attacks that could have led to multiple casualties at Poklonskaya's office, newspaper reported Friday."Several months ago, our guys found a bag with explosives at......

Virgin Coconut Oil: More effective than drugs in combating stress and depression

© the-open-mind.com A new study conducted in Malaysia looked at the effects of consuming high-antioxidant virgin coconut oil on mental health.Published in the journal and believed to be the first study of its kind, researchers evaluated the anti-stress and antioxidant effects of virgin coconut oil in mice with stress-induced injuries. The title of the study is ""The researchers performed several stress tests on groups of mice. Control groups included...

Sugar, not salt, plays major role in high blood pressure and heart disease

© Natural Society Added sugars in processed foods are likely to have a greater role in high blood pressure and heart disease and stroke, than added salt, say doctors in an analysis of the published evidence in the online journal .Dietary guidelines should emphasize the role played by added sugars, particularly fructose, in the fight to curb the prevalence of cardiovascular, they insist.Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of premature...

Pakistan investigating British doctor's ties to Taliban school massacre

© Reuters / Fayaz AzizA local cameraman films in front of an army soldier at the Army Public School, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen, in Peshawar, December 17, 2014. As Britain's Pakistani community mourns the massacre of 132 children in Tuesday's school siege, a British doctor with links to the Taliban is being investigated by Pakistan's intelligence service, suspected of involvement in the attack.Former NHS surgeon Mirza Tariq Ali fled the...

Blackmail opportunity? More than 48,000 federal employees affected by background check hack

© Shutterstock The Office of Personnel Management is alerting more than 48,000 federal employees their personal information may have been exposed following a breach at KeyPoint Government Solutions, which conducts background investigations of federal employees seeking security clearances.The total number of employees affected is 48,439, according to an email from OPM Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour obtained by NextgovSeymour said OPM worked...

Science and fraud are the same thing with biotech giant Monsanto

© nihongonews.wordpress Imagine this. A killer is put on trial, and the jury, in a surprise verdict, finds him not guilty. Afterwards, reporters interview this killer. He says, "The jury freed me. It's up to them. They decide. That's what justice is all about."Then the press moves along to members of the jury, who say: Well, we had to take the defendant's word. He said he was innocent, so that's what we ruled.That's an exact description of the FDA...

Birds may detect approaching storm from 900km away by infrasound waves

© AlamyThe golden-winged warblers may have picked up infrasound from tornadoes, which travels through the ground. A group of songbirds may have avoided a devastating storm by fleeing their US breeding grounds after detecting telltale infrasound waves.Researchers noticed the behaviour after analysing trackers attached to the birds to study their migration patterns. They believe it is the first documented case of birds making detours to avoid destructive...

NASA experts: California needs 11 trillion gallons to end drought

© Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Rain has returned to California, taking pressure off of the immediate emergency of the ongoing drought via the help of several inches of recent rainfall.But the Golden State loses about 4 trillion gallons per year, and would need roughly three times that amount to return to safe and normal levels."Recent rains are no reason to let up on our conservation efforts," Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources...

Maui stands as a beacon of hope: Moving closer to beating Monsanto over new GMO Moratorium

An attorney for the SHAKA Movement in Hawaii that has been trying to uphold a democratically voted moratorium on GMOs on the island of Maui reports that residents and activists have won - an intervention in a federal lawsuit that was brought on by Monsanto and Dow trying to push their genetically modified agenda on islanders will not go through. In other words, "proponents of the recently passed GMO Initiative on Maui have been given the green...

First mountain lion seen in Kentucky since before the Civil War shot by wildlife officer

© US Fish and Wildlife Service. A Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officer killed a mountain lion on a Bourbon County farm on Monday, marking the first confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in Kentucky since before the Civil War, said Mark Marraccini, a spokesman for the agency.Marraccini said a farmer spotted the cat in a tree and alerted the department. When the officer responded, he found the animal had been trapped in different tree...

Supertyphoon shifted 177-ton boulder 150 feet

Supertyphoon Haiyan set a world record when it touched down in the Philippines by moving a 177-ton boulder a distance of about 150 feet.Max Engel, a geoscientist at the University of Cologne in Germany, and colleagues from his college and the University of the Philippines' Marine Science Institute said they looked at satellite photos from before and after the typhoon's landfall in the Philippines in November 2013 and determined the boulder, weighing...

Turkey seeks warrant for CIA asset Fethullah Gulen

© AFP Photo / Zaman DailyFethullah Gulen. A prosecutor has asked a Turkish court to issue an arrest warrant for long-time Erdogan rival Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric, Reuters cited a government official as saying.However, no court decision has yet been reached.An earlier report by TRT Haber television, a Turkish state-run channel, stated that the court had already issued the warrant. The broadcaster removed the story from its website without...

Carnivore Comeback: Bear and wolf populations are thriving in Europe

© Kjell IsaksenA female brown bear (Ursus arctos) with three yearlings in Gutulia National Park in Hedmark, South East Norway. Despite having half the land area of the contiguous United States and double the population density, Europe is home to twice as many wolves as the U.S.A new study finds that Europe's other large carnivores are experiencing a resurgence in their numbers, too - and mostly in nonprotected areas where the animals coexist alongside...

Crows join humans, apes and monkeys in exhibiting advanced rational thinking

© Lomonosov Moscow University.Study finds crows spontaneously solve higher-order relational-matching tasks. But a newly published study finds crows also have the brain power to solve higher-order, relational-matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously. That means crows join humans, apes and monkeys in exhibiting advanced relational thinking, according to the research.Russian researcher Anna Smirnova studies a crow making the correct selection...
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