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Police depts in U.S. anticipate Trump's promised release of federal high-caliber military gear

militarized police
If president-elect Donald Trump keeps his promise, surplus military grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles and high-powered firearms and ammunition will once again be available to state and local U.S. police departments.

National police organizations say they'll hold Trump to that promise.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order restricting that access in 2015 amid an outcry over police use of armored vehicles and other war-fighting gear to confront protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Since then, federal officials have recalled more than 1,800 items, which have been destroyed through target practice or otherwise disposed of, officials say.

But state and local police organizations have protested, insisting that military-style vehicles and gear help protect officers' lives and public safety — for example, a privately manufactured, tracked armored vehicle played a key role in the police response to the mass shooting at a county government building in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015.

During his campaign, Trump sided with the police. In September, he promised to rescind the executive order in a written response to a Fraternal Order of Police questionnaire that helped him win an endorsement from the organization of rank-and-file officers.

Snakes in Suits

No records of 'faithless elector' Chris Suprun as a 9/11 first responder

Chris Suprun
© USA Today
Chris Suprun threw out first pitch at a Rangers game in 2015.
The Republican elector who has gotten national attention for refusing to vote for Donald Trump at the Electoral College on Dec. 19 was apparently not a first responder on September 11, 2001 as he has stated for years and has a questionable career history, according to an investigation by WFAA.

Chris Suprun, 42, portrays himself as a heroic firefighter who was among the first on the scene after the third plane flew into the Pentagon on 9/11.

In a heavily-publicized editorial this month for the New York Times, Suprun stated that as a member of the Electoral College he will not cast his ballot for Trump because the president-elect "shows daily he is not qualified for the office."

Suprun, a Dallas resident for more than a decade, even used his résumé to establish credibility in the Times piece, writing in the second paragraph: "Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation."

Comment: How did this con-artist even get to be an "elector" in the first place? Smells like a con-artist...


Calculator

DuPont in $50 million settlement over Virginia mercury pollution - US Justice Department

DuPont logo
© AP Photo/ Steve Helber, file
DuPont chemical company agreed to pay $50 million to settle claims stemming from the release of mercury from its Waynesboro, Virginia facility, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Thursday.

"The Departments of Justice and the Interior joined with the Commonwealth of Virginia today to announce a proposed settlement with DuPont valued at approximately $50 million to resolve claims stemming from the release of mercury from the former EI du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont) facility in Waynesboro, Virginia," the release said. "Over 100 miles of river and associated floodplain have been contaminated by mercury in the South River and South Fork Shenandoah River watershed."

Government natural resource trustees will use the funds to implement projects that will compensate the public for the injuries related to natural resources and associated losses, the release said.

Comment: See also:


Dollar

Militants in Aleppo 'make a fortune' selling humanitarian aid to residents

Refugees in Aleppo
© Sputnik/ Michael Alaeddin
Military correspondent Kamel Saker told Sputnik Arabic about the humanitarian situation in liberated Aleppo and efforts by the Syrian Army to help people.

"I've been in Aleppo for several days and I've seen how the military, political and humanitarian situation in the city evolved. Yesterday, I visited four districts freed of terrorists. The evacuation of people to tent camps is well organized. The Syrian military command managed to find personnel to help civilians. Everything necessary has been supplied, including transport, food and medicines," Saker said.

The reporter also said that militants made money on selling humanitarian aid, particularly food, to locals. "When Syrian soldiers entered apartments occupied by militants they saw that they had made a fortune selling food supplies. They were monopolists and banned other people from selling foods. They set prices 20 times higher than they should be," he said.

Comment: More truths come out on the West's 'humanitarian aid' efforts.


Syringe

$60 million drug bust: 'Largest known seizure of heroin' in Afghanistan revealed by DEA

Afghan farmer collecting opium bulbs
© Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
A massive 20 tons of drugs with a "conservative" street value of about $60 million were seized from a "super lab" run by suspected Taliban connected trafficking network, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has revealed.

The biggest-ever seizure of heroin in Afghanistan "if not the world" took place last October in a joint operation between the DEA, American Special Forces and Afghanistan's Sensitive Investigative Unit and National Interdiction Unit.

The haul included 129 kilograms of crystal heroin, 6.4 tons of heroin base, 134 kilograms of opium, 12.5 tons of morphine base and 12 kilograms of hashish.

Attention

Kids as young as 8 accused of robbing and violently attacking a man in Brooklyn, NY

Children
Police say the suspects in a violent crime that took place in Brooklyn, are children.

Surveillance footage shows the four young suspects — accused of robbing and attacking a man — and police say one of them is as young as 8.

As CBS2's Hazel Sanchez reported, a 30-year-old man was jumped outside of a co-op building on Willoughby Street off of Ashland Place in Fort Greene on the Friday after Thanksgiving around 12:30 a.m.

Police said four kids, two boys between the ages of 12 and 14, a girl between 12 and 14 and an 8 or 9-year-old boy, approached the man and demanded his phone.

Pirates

Eiffel Tower goes black in solidarity with radical jihadists

eiffel tower
© AFP/Philippe Lopez
The lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris were switched off on Wednesday to show support for the people of the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo.

The monument was plunged into darkness from 8:00 pm (1900 GMT) in what Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said was a protest at the "unbearable" situation for civilians in the city where fighting raged during the day.

Rebel forces announced a new deal late Wednesday to allow residents to be evacuated from the city.

Hidalgo said in a statement before the lights on the tower were switched off that "the final roads of Aleppo held by the opposition are being taken by the regime, creating hundreds of victims".

Several hundred people demonstrated in Paris on Wednesday in support of Aleppo's residents, an AFP journalist reported.

Some of the protesters wore a piece of red clothing to symbolise the blood spilled in the fierce battle for Syria's second city.

Comment: What a load of fake news garbage. Basically, France announces its support for terrorists. France doesn't care at all about the civilians of Aleppo. If they did, they would have supported Aleppo's liberation from the jihadis years ago.


People 2

Venezuelan parents give up their children in midst of economic crisis

Venezuelan family
© Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Zulay Pulgar, holds her son Emmanuel, next to her husband Maikel Cuauro and her father Juan Pulgar while they pose for a portrait in their house in Punto Fijo.
Struggling to feed herself and her seven children, Venezuelan mother Zulay Pulgar asked a neighbor in October to take over care of her six-year-old daughter, a victim of a pummeling economic crisis.

The family lives on Pulgar's father's pension, worth $6 a month at the black market rate, in a country where prices for many basic goods are surpassing those in the United States.

"It's better that she has another family than go into prostitution, drugs or die of hunger," the 43-year-old unemployed mother said, sitting outside her dilapidated home with her five-year-old son, father and unemployed husband.

With average wages less than the equivalent of $50 a month at black market rates, three local councils and four national welfare groups all confirmed an increase in parents handing children over to the state, charities or friends and family.

The government does not release data on the number of parents giving away their children and welfare groups struggle to compile statistics given the ad hoc manner in which parents give away children and local councils collate figures.

Still, the trend highlights Venezuela's fraying social fabric and the heavy toll that a deep recession and soaring inflation are taking on the country with the world's largest oil reserves.

Footprints

Venezuela: 100 Bolivar bank note ban causes run on banks

bolivar notes
In the ongoing saga of Venezuela's sad economic slide into hell, it came as a strong arm move on the part of President Maduro.

Bank runs are happening in Venezuela, but not to pull money from the banks; rather, to get their 100 Bs. bills into the banks before a 72-hour time limit expires and the notes become outlawed currency that is no longer officially recognized.

Long lines once again, and this time for the opportunity not to lose all the money that these struggling people have been saving up and safeguarding amid this insane and chaotic world of Venezuela:


Tornado1

Web Bots predict massive financial shock in early 2017: 'Confusion, bond market degradation, crumbling of everything'

graphic of large tornados in big city
There are scores of organizations working on ways to interpret user data on the internet to help predict future events. Law enforcement agencies and financial institutions having been working on this predictive technology for over a decade. In most cases, none of that information is ever shared with the general public.

Clif High of HalfPastHuman, however, has taken a different course. Since the mid-1990's High's algorithms have been scouring the internet. With the advent of social networks and tens of thousands of citizen-driven blogs, that data has gotten ever more accurate. So accurate in fact, that on October 27 High's automated "Web Bots" predicted that not only would Trump win by a landslide, but that Hillary Clinton would be "missing" following the election, a prediction that was so accurate it blew away just about every professional analysis firm in the world.