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Washington Supreme Court ruling blocks mortgage lenders from locking people out of homes prior to foreclosure

Gene Johnson
Yahoo News
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
bank forclosed home
© AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli,In this July 2, 2008, file photo, a bank-owned home is seen for sale in Sacramento, Calif. Consumer groups say a recent ruling from the Washington state Supreme Court could have a broad effect on how some mortgage companies respond when homeowners miss payments
Laura Jordan came home from work one day to find herself locked out. She had missed two mortgage payments, and the company servicing her loan had changed the locks without warning.

In a ruling this month, the Washington Supreme Court found that action illegal — a decision that clears the way for a federal class-action case that Jordan brought on behalf of at least 3,600 borrowers in the state, and one that could have broad ramifications on how some lenders respond when homeowners miss payments.

"This is criminal trespass and theft, and it should be treated as such," said Sheila O'Sullivan, executive director of the Northwest Consumer Law Center. "There's no basis for them to walk in and change the locks on a person's home until they have foreclosed. It's an important ruling."

The mortgage industry is wrestling with the significance of the 6-3 ruling, which found that provisions standard in mortgage documents around the country conflict with state law. The provisions allow for lenders to change locks, winterize homes or take other steps to preserve the value of properties that are in default or abandoned.
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Almaty goes to 'Code Red' terror alert - 3 Police officers dead, 7 in critical condition


Sputnik News
Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:20 UTC
Kazak Police
© Reuters/Pavel MikheyevPolice officers detain a man after an attack in the centre of Almaty, Kazakhstan, July 18, 2016.
The highest of terror alerts has been declared in the Kazakh city of Almaty following an armed attack on police officers Monday, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Kazakh law enforcement announced a counter-terrorism operation in Almaty and urged residents of the city to stay indoors and keep safe.

"In this regard we ask everyone not to leave their homes, to avoid crowded areas. All suspicious persons must be immediately reported to law enforcement agencies," the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

Local authorities confirmed that one attacker was detained by police.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the arrested gunman is also suspected of murdering a woman over the weekend.

Earlier, multiple witness accounts described a man wearing black running onto a street with a machine gun and opening fire in the direction of the local police station.
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Heart - Black

Saudi Arabia's male guardianship still limits women's rights - reforms on paper only


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 03:33 UTC
human rights women saudi arabia
© Stringer / Reuters
The latest report from Human Rights Watch has revealed that obligatory male guardianship in Saudi Arabia remains a key obstacle to women's rights. Adult women have to get permission from men to travel abroad, marry, or be freed from prison.

These rules apply from cradle to grave, as women are always regarded as legal minors in Saudi Arabia.

The 79-page report entitled "Boxed In: Women in Saudi Arabia's Male Guardianship System" studies the formal and informal obstacles that Saudi women face daily.

The title derives from one account given by a 25-year-old Saudi woman, who said "We all have to live in the borders of the boxes our dads or husbands draw for us."

Every Saudi woman is bound to have a male guardian, usually a father or husband, but sometimes a brother or a son. Other male relatives also have authority over women's fates, although to a lesser extent. The guardian makes crucial life decisions for his charge: he has the power to prohibit her from traveling abroad, working, or marrying. The woman should ask her guardian for advice on getting proper health care as well.

Women's rights activists have repeatedly urged the Saudi authorities to change the situation, and in 2009 and 2013, Saudi Arabia did adopt steps to ease the control of the guardians. In particular, no permission is now needed for Saudi women to work, and a law was passed criminalizing domestic abuse.
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Mr. Potato

Pokémon chaos: Child hit by a motorbike, others rescued from a cave as download frenzy crashes game servers

Alexander Robertston
Daily Mail
Fri, 15 Jul 2016 17:50 UTC
pokeman mine rescue
A specialist mine rescue team (pictured) were forced to save a group of teenagers who got lost in a cave - while looking for Pokemon
A teenager thought to have been playing new rave game Pokemon Go was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the road.

The boy, in his mid-teens, was struck by the bike in a busy road after walking out between two buses.

Officers from the Met Police and paramedics from the London Ambulance service were called to Bexleyheath at 3.35pm.

The young boy suffered minor injuries and was taken to a south London hospital.

The incident comes after a specialist mine rescue team were forced to save a group of teenagers who got lost in a cave - while looking for Pokemon.

The four teens headed into the underground network of tunnels to play the mobile phone game that has recently taken the world by storm.

But the kids lost their way in the caves below Hawthorn in Wiltshire and were forced to wander around until they found enough mobile phone signal to call 999.

Comment: The 'Pokémon Go' app is doing the CIA's dirty work

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Yoda

10 key ways to short circuit the Matrix

John W. Whitehead
Waking Times
Thu, 14 Jul 2016 00:00 UTC
system failure

"Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious." - George Orwell
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It's a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said—about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption—while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama's warning that the nation needs to do some "soul searching" about issues such as race, poverty and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high.

Americans' private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo pill intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, "The theater we've just witnessed allows decision makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what's actually transpired is hardly major change."

Comment: The Matrix metaphor is very apt but runs far deeper than this article suggests. Read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's elucidating Wave Series to learn of the cosmic context that all of these developments are coming out of - and fit within.

red pill


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Stock Down

Despicable: Canadian priest gambled away $400,000 of refugee aid


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 09:20 UTC
Amer Saka catholic priest
© Gambling Herald / YouTubeAmer Saka (Left)
A priest in London, Canada, has been charged with fraud for allegedly stealing and gambling away some US$400,000 (C$500,000) collected by his parish for refugee aid.

Amer Saka, a 51 year old clergyman of St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Syriac branch of the Catholic Church, had ostensibly collected the money from some 20 donors as part of a sponsorship program that helps refugees fleeing war-torn Middle Eastern countries move to Canada, local media reported.

The fraud surfaced when Saka allegedly called his local Bishop, Emanuel Shaleta, head of the Chaldean Catholic church in Canada, and confessed to taking the money for himself and losing it all at a casino. He then turned himself in to police, who launched an investigation, while church authorities suspended him from his duties.

Comment: How many people could have been helped with the money that this supposed man of service carelessly squandered? How many people will suffer and die because of his actions?

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Dollars

Nice attacker: Texted someone about weapons, emptied bank account, scoped out Nice for 2-3 days


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 20:14 UTC
bouhlel
© Eric Gaillard / ReutersThe name Mohamed Lahoualej Bouhlel is seen on a plate outside the building where he lived in Nice, France, July 17, 2016
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the driver of the truck that killed at least 84 people in Nice on Thursday, had planned the attack and was busy preparing for it, local media report citing investigators.

Police have inspected the attacker's phone, found in his truck when they searched through it. They discovered several text messages Bouhlel apparently wrote to his accomplice, just ahead of the tragedy. One message reads "I have the equipment."

Bouhlel there might have been referring to the truck he rented, or to the dummy weapons, a deactivated grenade and 7.65mm caliber pistol with which he shot at police during the attack before being shot himself. France-TV reports Bouhlel procured the weapon from two Albanians, who are among 6 people currently in custody in connection with the case. Bouhlel 's ex-wife, previously also detained, has been released on Sunday, AFP reports.


Comment: Caution: 'accomplices' does not necessarily imply any ties to an organized "Islamic terror cell". In this case, it can simply mean the people he got the weapons from, or someone who helped him rent the truck. They need not have even known he was planning something of this sort.

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Pistol

Police describe deadly shooting at Florida hospital as 'extremely random'

J.D. Gallop and Chris Bonanno
FLORIDA TODAY
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 13:11 UTC
titusville florida hospital shooting
© Craig Rubadoux / FLORIDA TODAYTwo people were killed in a shooting at Parrish Medical Center in Titusville early Sunday.
A 29-year-old Titusville man was taken into custody as investigators search for a motive in what Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says was an "extremely random" shooting inside Parrish Medical Center in Titusville that claimed the lives of an employee and a patient.

The suspected gunman was identified as David Owens, 29, of Titusville. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail Complex about 10 a.m. Sunday and charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and is being held on a no bond status.

The victims were named as 88-year-old Cynthia Zingsheim, who was a patient at the hospital, and 36-year-old employee Carrie Rouzer. Both were shot in a room on the third floor, where the 210-bed hospital's birthing suites are also located.

Comment: Is there "something in the air" recently that's causing people to lose any remaining semblances of sanity that they had left?

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Pistol

Alleged rape suspect takes four hostages in Baltimore Burger King

Colin Campbell
The Baltimore Sun
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:31 UTC
cop cars baltimore intersection hostage situation burger king
© Courtesy @charmcitylwyBaltimore police responded to a possible barricade situation at Washington and Monroe in Southwest Baltimore.
An armed man suspected in a recent rape took four people hostage — including a 7-year-old girl — inside a Baltimore Burger King after evading police Sunday, authorities said.

Officers tried to stop the suspect, whom police did not name, to serve him an arrest warrant on the northwest side of the city about 11 a.m., when he sped off and led police on a chase to Washington Boulevard and South Monroe Street near Carroll Park, police said.

The man crashed into another car at the intersection about 11:30 a.m. and ran inside the fast food restaurant, where he barricaded himself and the hostages, police said.
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Christmas Tree

800,000 people in India attempt to plant 50 million trees to break Guinness World record

Katie Pohlman
Eco Watch
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 01:54 UTC
Planting trees in India
More than 800,000 people turned out Monday in India to plant trees in hopes of breaking a world record.

Uttar Pradesh officials distributed 50 million tree saplings across the state to help India increase its forest cover and to break the Guinness World record for the number of trees planted in 24 hours—which was set by Pakistan in 2013 with 847,275 trees—the AP reported. Students, lawmakers, government officials and others headed out to plant trees at designated spots along roads, rail tracks and in forested lands.

Comment: See also: Tree-mendous health benefit of trees
  • Lone Indian man creates lush new forest ecosystem planting 1,360 acre forest


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