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Illinois school district installs fingerprint scanners in school cafeterias

Victor Skinner
EAG News
Wed, 04 May 2016 18:19 UTC
Fingerprint scanner
Students and faculty at Harrison Street Elementary School just love the new thumbprint scanner in the school's lunch line, but civil rights experts are warning parents about serious privacy concerns with the technology.

The Geneva Unit District 304 replaced a different biometric scanner system for school lunch lines this year with devices from a local company, PushCoin Inc., that read students' thumb prints to track their accounts, the Daily Herald reports.

"It's good, because you don't have to carry your own money or anything like that," fifth-grader Quinlan Bobeczko told the news site. "It's just there. Your thumb is easy, because you just have to put your thumb on (the device)."

Officials in several area school districts are watching District 304 in hopes of installing similar devices in their schools.

East Maine Elementary District 63 spokeswoman Janet Bishop said the district hired PushCoin Inc. this spring to begin offering the thumb scan option this month, and Lake Zurich Unit District 95 board president Doug Goldberg said schools there will implement the biometric scanners in the 2016-17 school year, the Daily Herald reports.

Comment: Privacy concerns raised as more than one million pupils are fingerprinted in UK schools

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V

Clashes in Paris as police tear gas groups protesting decision to evict asylum seekers from high school under renovation


RT
Wed, 04 May 2016 15:56 UTC
migrants fighting paris police
© Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt / AFP
Migrants' supporters clashes with anti-riot policemen to protest against the Jean-Jaurès highschool evacuation by the police in Paris on May 4, 2016
Police in Paris have deployed tear gas against demonstrators and refugees who protested the authorities' decision to evict at least 277 asylum seekers who had been living in a high school under renovation for about two weeks.

The demonstrators, some of them wearing masks and hoods, formed a human chain to prevent police officers from entering the building of Jean Jaurès School, French media reported.

"Everyone hates the police," and "Solidarity with Refugees," protesters chanted, before starting to throw objects at police, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

Police, in turn, deployed tear gas against the demonstrators. When they finally managed to enter the school, they faced a barricade made of chairs and tables piled up to block them.

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Radar

US freight rail traffic plunges: Haunting pictures of transportation recession

Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Wed, 04 May 2016 14:24 UTC
Idle trains in Arizona
Total US rail traffic in April plunged 11.8% from a year ago, the Association of American Railroads reported today. Carloads of bulk commodities such as coal, oil, grains, and chemicals plummeted 16.1% to 944,339 units.

The coal industry is in a horrible condition and cannot compete with US natural gas at current prices. Coal-fired power plants are being retired. Demand for steam coal is plunging. Major US coal miners - even the largest one - are now bankrupt. So in April, carloads of coal plummeted 40% from the already beaten-down levels a year ago. The AAR report:
Rail coal traffic continues to suffer due to low natural gas prices and high coal stockpiles at power plants. Coal accounted for just 26% of non-intermodal rail traffic for US railroads in April 2016, down from 36% in April 2015 and 45% as recently as late 2011.
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Newspaper

Waking up: Majority of Germans think the media is controlled by political, economic elites

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Thu, 05 May 2016 14:16 UTC
Caution: media is not a reflection of reality
According to a recent survey, the majority of people in Germany view the news media as simply a pillar of the government and the powerfully elite. Only one third of the respondents think that the German news media is truly independent, while the majority view the government and parties as having control over particular policies, and the lobbyists and advertisers having control over the economic news.

More than half of the respondents viewed the news media as controlled by the "powerful" in the country, a view which manifested in recent years in the wake of going through crisis after crisis as the media began to be viewed simply as part of the system, or, the Fourth Estate.

Another major issue brought forth by the respondents is that the media reports only the problems, never presents any solutions, and when it came to consequences of political decisions very little reporting was done on the impacts those decisions had on the people.
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Health

Safe haven baby boxes arrive in US


RT
Thu, 05 May 2016 03:34 UTC
Baby in a box
© Tony Gentile / Reuters
Baby hatches may be common in parts of Europe and Asia, but the first two in the US have just now arrived. Indiana is embracing the boxes that will allow women to anonymously surrender their children, making abandonment safer and easier.

The first baby box in the US can be found in Woodburn, Indiana, where the padded, climate controlled container will send an alarm to emergency responders when a baby is deposited, according to AP. There is no word on whether it will be able to tell the difference between an actual baby and somebody shoving in garbage to mess with the authorities.
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Quenelle

Army Captain sues Obama for fighting ISIS without authorization from Congress


RT
Thu, 05 May 2016 11:43 UTC
Obama ISIS
An Army Captain is suing President Barack Obama, arguing that the war against Islamic State is illegal because it has not been authorized by Congress.

"Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, when the President introduces United States armed forces into hostilities... he must either get approval from Congress within sixty day to continue the operation, in the form of a declaration of war... [the] President did not get Congress's approval for his war against ISIS in Iraq or Syria... the war is therefore illegal," said Captain Nathan Michael Smith, a military intelligence officer, in court documents filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday.

The court documents say that the 1973 War Powers Resolution was enacted by Congress to prevent presidential overreach and protect Congress' right to vote on whether and when to go to war. The resolution was created after Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon escalated the war in Vietnam and extended it into Laos and Thailand as a general "war against communism."

Comment: Further reading: Lame duck Obama: Grasping for an imperial legacy

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Airplane

'Severe and unexpected' turbulence injures 32 on Etihad flight to Indonesia

Rachel Browne
Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 04 May 2016 21:30 UTC
severe turbulence on Etihad flight
© NETCitizenJournalist, Facebook
Passengers could be heard screaming and crying as their flight encountered severe turbulence.
More than 30 passengers are being treated for injuries after their Etihad Airways flight encountered severe turbulence just before landing.

Flight EY474 travelling from Abu Dhabi to Jakarta encountered "severe and unexpected" turbulence 45 minutes before landing on Wednesday.

Passengers were seen screaming, crying and hugging each other in a video filmed by a passenger, which showed the plane rocking violently from side to side.

Oxygen masks tumbled from the ceiling, passengers told Jakarta-based news website Okezone .

"It happened when I was performing prayer," passenger Nenden Nurhaini told the website. "The plane suddenly began to shake so fast."


Medical teams met passengers as they disembarked from the Airbus A330-200, which landed safely at Soekarno Hatta International Airport.

Comment: A few months ago freak turbulence injured over 20 people on board an Air Canada flight from Shanghai to Toronto. According to a Canadian physics professor specializing in atmospheric turbulence, breaking "gravity waves" may have been responsible for the incident. For related articles, see also:

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Heart - Black

FBI: Man sprayed mouse poison on grocery store produce

Reve Fisher
Opposing Views
Wed, 04 May 2016 02:46 UTC
man sprays produce
© Whole Foods
On May 3, officials detained the man who has been accused of spraying a liquid onto unpackaged food products and produce at various Michigan supermarkets.

The public played a substantial role in helping the FBI and Ann Arbor Police Department locate the man who was recorded spraying a substance on the salad and hot food bars at a local Whole Foods Market, MLive reports. Investigators discovered the liquid mixture consists of Tomcat mouse poison, alcohol-based hand sanitizer and water.

At least three stores in Ann Arbor have been affected by the actions of this man, whose name has yet to be released by authorities. The Whole Foods Market at 990 W. Eisenhower Parkway, Meijer at 3145 Ann Arbor-Saline Road, and Plum Market at 375 North Maple Road are believed to have been targeted in the last two weeks of April.
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Alarm Clock

Duggar cult founder plans Kansas 'retreat' to set up arranged marriages for teen girls

Vyckie Garrsion
Raw Story
Wed, 04 May 2016 17:56 UTC
surprised girl
© Shutterstock
Wanna hear a true American horror story?

A group of ultra-conservative Christian men are planning to meet up in Kansas later this year to arrange marriages for their pubescent daughters ... and they don't believe their daughters' consent is actually necessary.

Quiverfull patriarch, Vaughn Ohlman, who runs a website promoting early, "fruitful" marriage for Truly True Christian children, has announced plans for a "Get Them Married!" retreat where fundamentalist fathers will find, and TAKE, suitably submissive young brides to bear many babies for their adolescent sons.

The weekend retreat, which will be held in Wichita this coming November, is "designed to bring together like-minded families (and their unmarried young men and women) who are committed to young, fruitful marriage and to help them overcome the barriers which have kept their children unmarried."

For around $1200 per family, Quiverfull parents will spend three days "networking" with similarly-delusional zealots who believe men are to be in charge, wives are to be submissive baby-makers, and children are to be sheltered, isolated, indoctrinated, and pushed toward early, prolific marriages for Jesus.
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Arrow Down

Farm Cartoonist fired from job of 21 years for criticizing Monsanto and Dupont and Company

Erin Elizabeth
Health Nut News
Tue, 03 May 2016 01:48 UTC
Fired cartoonist
I wonder, if, in 20 years, we won't be allowed to write about Monsanto or Dupont at all. They control the government and the government wants to control us. Plain and simple folks.
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