She would always have the brightest smile as she stood at the intersection of Avenue T and Ocean Ave in Brooklyn, N.Y. circa 1968. She was our crossing guard and we all loved Mrs. Lombardo. Each morning and afternoon during school days she would greet each and every kid who passed by her post. On Sundays, before and after each Catholic Mass at St. Edmunds church , she would be there, again with that contagious smile. The young kids loved her as one would love a favorite aunt, and the seniors, who seemed to make up a majority of each Sunday mass, enjoyed the special care Mrs. Lombardo offered them. Then, perhaps sometime in 1968, her son Tommy joined the Marines along with his childhood buddy Pete Haros, of the Haros Coffee shop on Avenue U. A year later Pete returned to the coffee shop from his tour of duty in Vietnam unscathed. Tommy returned in a box! Mrs. Lombardo still took up her post on that corner, but the sparkling smile was replaced by what this writer remembers as a 'Mona Lisa smile' or half frown. As with the lady in the famous portrait, Mrs. Lombardo had too much to say without saying a thing.

Memorial Day is around the corner once again, and it seems ' The Dogs of War ' are at it as always. Fifty plus years ago there were 58,220 Tommy Lombardos who would never see the smiles of their Moms ever again. Factor that in with approximately 2 million Vietnamese who lost their lives, and one can deduce what our empire's imperial presence meant. For what? For whom? Yet, each and every year spanning these decades, our empire's handlers and their compliant, embedded media sell us this fake and false bill of goods. They honor those dead as ' fallen heroes ' when they should be apologizing for using them as pawns for the geopolitical game they play.

A concerned family is speaking out after they claim that their Amazon Alexa device recorded a conversation they were having in their home, and sent it to a random contact who alerted them to the fact that he had heard everything they said.

A homeowner named Danielle, who asked for her last name to remain anonymous, told KIRO 7 that she and her husband were in their house, discussing home improvement projects and hardwood floors when they received an urgent call from one of her husband's employees in Seattle.

"The person on the other line said, 'unplug your Alexa devices right now, you're being hacked,'" Danielle said.

"We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house," she said. "At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!' And the (recipient of the message) said 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh, you really did hear us.'"

The employee sent the couple the email he had received with the audio files, and Danielle confirmed that it was, in fact, a direct recording of their conversation. She told KIRO 7 that the Amazon Alexa had access to every room in her house because it controlled the heating, lighting and security system in her home.

Propaganda/Disinformation regularly occurs, with fake or doctored footage/pictures being used. You should never instantly believe everything you see/read.

Scepticism and analysis need to be applied, namely:

• Who is producing the propaganda?
• What they are saying?
• Who is the propaganda directed at? Who are the intended audience?
• Why?
• With what effect?

Thousands of supporters of Germany's rising far-right party, the AfD, are marching in Berlin on Sunday. The demonstration is being met with counter-protests by several groups including some from the city's renowned club scene.

Up to 10,000 people are expected to take part in the march entitled 'Future for Germany,' according to its organizers, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The event sees protesters walk from Berlin's main train station to the Brandenburg Gate.

The right-wing populist party, known for its anti-migrant and anti-Muslim stance, became the largest opposition party to Angela Merkel's coalition government after last year's federal elections.

On May 18, Rabbi Jill Jacobs published an essay in the Washington Post purporting to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and "anti-Semitism." In the essay, she posted two of my tweets to suggest that I am anti-Semitic [spoiler: I am not]. Since August, 2014, the Washington Post has run numerous articles similarly impugning my character. The paper has never offered me space to write in my own voice, despite numerous inquiries. I submitted an essay to the Post's Outlook section responding to the issues raised in Jacobs' piece, but the paper declined to run it. That essay, as submitted, follows.

When Israeli soldiers open fire on unarmed demonstrators, as they have been doing for over a month in the Gaza Strip, Americans are implicated in the violence, for the United States arms and funds those soldiers. Yet liberal supporters of Israel insist on complicating this straightforward proposition.

Last week I was in Jerusalem as Israeli snipers shot 1360 people on the Gaza border, killing 60 of them; and even as the horror mounted, I was of the opinion that the historic atrocity would change American opinion and allow Democratic candidates to run against Israel. Indeed, in the hours that followed, many celebrities spoke out in outrage, joining brave Natalie Portman; Jeffrey Goldberg the Atlantic editor (and former Israeli army prison guard) acknowledged that a divorce between the American Jewish and Israeli Jewish communities is coming; and the Onion captured the mood with two savage headlines.

"IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child" [link]

A documentary by Swedish Radio has highlighted the problem of prostitution in central Stockholm, where so-called "street children," mostly of foreign decent, have become a sought-after commodity among middle-aged ladies. One of the "street kids" described the agreement as beneficial, due to money, food and shelter being offered.

Older women in Stockholm are procuring sexual services from migrant kids of North African descent, said one of the young illegal immigrants roaming the streets of Stockholm, in "Tendens" ("Tendency"), a short documentary by Abdelaziz Maaloum and Anders Ljungberg.

In the documentary, a certain "Amin" is being interviewed. By his own admission, he is 17 years old and comes from Morocco. Before making it to Sweden as an illegal immigrant, he had been to over 20 different countries, including Iceland and Greenland, which are far less common destinations for an asylum seeker.

The grapes are shriveled. The vineyard is dead. Reduced to a large, dried-out, yellowing stain in the heart of the verdant region along Highway 60 where the road runs past the town of Halhoul, north of Hebron. The "yellow wind" that David Grossman wrote about 30 years ago is a dying vineyard here. Two plots of land, with hundreds of vines that were slashed, their stems and shoots sawed off - and within a week everything here had withered and died.

This is a particularly horrible sight because all the damage was wrought by the hand of man. A wicked, loathsome hand that hates not only Arabs but despises the land itself. In fact, we can assume that it wasn't just one individual who raided and destroyed this vineyard late Tuesday night last week. To saw off that many plants in such a short time requires a few pairs of nasty hands. And someone also had to smear the threatening words in Hebrew on a rock: "We will reach everywhere." All before first light illuminated the dark deed.

When dawn broke, the owner of the vineyard, Dr. Haitham Jahshan, a hematologist, arrived and couldn't believe his eyes. His vines had been ravaged. First he saw one sawed trunk, then another and another - a sea of butchered vines, whose grapes were grown to be eaten, not for wine - until the full scale of the calamity hit home.

A huge fire has broken out at Europa-Park in the German town of Rust, the second most visited theme park in Europe after Disneyland. The inferno prompted the visitors to evacuate as many lamented their favorite attraction online.

A huge plume of black smoke has risen hundreds of meters in sky as a warehouse near the attraction called "The Pirates of Batavia" caught fire on Saturday, the emergencies services said.

The disaster led to the evacuation of visitors from the Scandinavia area of the park closest to the blaze. The police said that, according to preliminary data, there were no deaths or injuries.

President Trump issued a series of executive orders Friday that could gut federal employee unions' ability to negotiate with agency leaders and represent workers, as well as reduce the time it takes for an agency to fire people for poor performance or misconduct.

Billed as the first step toward broad civil service reform, senior administration officials announced in a call with reporters on Friday afternoon three executive orders aimed at making it easier to fire poor performers and ordering harsher treatment of union representatives.

"Today, the president is fulfilling his promise to promote a more efficient government by reforming civil service rules," said Andrew Bremberg, director of the president's Domestic Policy Council. "Every year, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey shows that less than one third of federal employees believe poor performers are adequately addressed by their agency. These executive orders make it easier to remove poor performing employees, and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used."

The first order, as described by a senior administration official speaking on background, would reduce the time it takes to fire poor performers and employees suspected of misconduct by standardizing the length of Performance Improvement Plans at 30 days across government. Currently, PIPs vary from agency to agency, and generally run between 60 to 120 days.