80 million plastic balls to prevent Los Angeles reservoirs from becoming carcinogenic

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is buying 80 million 4-inch black polyethylene balls to cover the surfaces of three Los Angeles reservoirs that serve 4 million residents. At a cost of 33 cents each, the hollow spheres are designed to block sunlight from turning bromide and chlorine in the water into bromate, a suspected carcinogen. Photos of the ball manufacturing equipment at XavierC in Glendora, California. ...

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From Currency Wars To Oil Wars - OPEC Ups Production To 3 Year Highs As Iran Output Surges

As China takes the currency wars to the next level, so OPEC, not to be outdone, rotates the oil war volume to 11. As Bloomberg reports, OPEC pumped the most crude last month in more than three years as Iran restored output to the highest level since international sanctions were strengthened in 2012. The response - as one would expect - is a plunge in crude prices, erasing all the ridiculous algo-driven gains of yesterday, pushing WTI back...

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NYPD Ordered to Publicly Shame the Homeless by Taking Photos and Posting Online

New York, NY — NYPD police have recently been showing how compassionate they are by taking photos of homeless people and publicly shaming them online. The activity is not only condoned by the department, but it is being sanctioned and encouraged by high-ranking officials at the NYPD. The ironically named “Sergeants Benevolent Association” sent out an email this week, ordering both police officers and their families to take photos of homeless...

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What Every Parent Should Know: How Smartphones Destroy Children's Brain

Over 2 billion people now own smartphones and use their devices on a daily basis. Recent studies find that an average person checks their screen 150 times a day. In the Western world, 56 percent of children between the ages of 10 to 13, own a smartphone. While that fact alone may come as a shock, it is estimated that 25 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 5 have a smartphone. Everyone has seen it, and maybe you're even guilty of it...

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Thousands Of Americans Have Been Illegally Detained In Chicago’s CIA-Style Detention Center

By Carey Wedler The Chicago Police’s CIA-style black site, Homan Square, has seen more people detained than died on 9/11 or imprisoned at Guantanamo, according to a new report by the Guardian. The newspaper, which sued the Chicago police to obtain further details on Homan Square, reports overwhelming targeting of minorities as well as other sordid and violative policies. From 2004 to 2015, at least 3,500 people were detained at Homan...

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St. Louis County Charges Journalists Who Covered Ferguson Protests With Trespassing

Another reporter, Matt Pearce from the LA Times, reached out to the police, who seemed to indicate that the arrests had been a mistake (and from the descriptions offered by Reilly and Lowery, that sounds about right). Lowery and Reilly were then released and told that no charges would be filed against reporters. And yet... prosecutors have decided to move forward with the lawsuit , charging at least Lowery with trespassing (Reilly has not officially...

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China "Loses Battle Over Yuan", And Now The Global Currency War Begins

Almost exactly seven months ago, on January 15, the Swiss National Bank shocked the world when it admitted defeat in a long-standing war to keep the Swiss Franc artificially weak, and after a desperate 3 year-long gamble, which included loading up the SNB's balance sheet with enough EUR-denominated garbage to almost equal the Swiss GDP, it finally gave up and on one cold, shocking January morning the EURCHF imploded, crushing countless carry-trade...

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