The following is an excerpt from the new book Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer by John C. Mutter (St. Martin's Press, 2015):

Disaster seen as an opportunity for engineering social change is not a new idea. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 occurred simultaneously with a typhoon, the only occurrence of such a double disaster on record. The earthquake, and more so the subsequent fires, destroyed 45 percent of Tokyo and 90 percent of Yokohama, killing well over 100,000 people. (As always, estimates vary.) The fires no doubt killed more people than the quake itself as the quake occurred around midday, when many people were cooking outdoors on open fires. Descriptions of the conflagration sound like scenes from a fiery hell. Some 38,000 people were incinerated together when they sought refuge in a huge former army clothing warehouse; it was instantly engulfed in the inferno of a massive fire tornado created by the typhoon winds and the roaring fires.

A certain elite saw the earthquake as an opportunity to rebuild the city in a more modern and efficient way, similar to Georges- Eugene Haussmann's renewal of Paris, with wide boulevards and grand architecture, at the behest of Napoleon III in the 1850s. (Tellingly, Haussmann's plans have been criticized for creating an overly grandiose city meant for tourists, the wealthy, and the bourgeoisie, with working-class people effectively ignored and marginalized to the periphery of the city.) In its layout and architecture, the new Tokyo was meant to somehow reflect new moral values as well. Haussmann used military cannons to demolish Paris, but for Tokyo, there was no need for cannons: Nature had razed the city.

The US government has released a document describing the process it undertakes when deciding whether or not to inform the public about critical vulnerabilities it discovers in software. However, important details remain redacted.

Essentially, the document shows that an interagency review board, facilitated by an office within the National Security Agency (NSA) called the 'Executive Secretariat', decides whether the public will learn about software flaws that could be exploited. The entire practice is known as the 'Vulnerabilities Equities Process', or VEP.

Information about the process itself, however, was redacted. The government also redacted all information regarding a decision to not disclose security vulnerabilities.

Despite initially stating that the entire document was classified, the government released it Thursday to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights advocacy group which had filed a lawsuit against seeking more information about the VEP.


Concern over the VEP stems from the government's acknowledgment that it uses "zero-day" exploits against foreign targets and criminal suspects. These zero-day exploits are vulnerabilities in computer software that are not known to the software developer. Since they are not known, malicious code can be designed to exploit the vulnerabilities and attack the computers targeted by governments and hackers, both US and foreign alike.

In April 2014, the US stated that "unless there is a clear national security or law enforcement need" for a zero-day exploit, "it is in the national interest to responsibly disclose the vulnerability." The VEP was then cited as the government's way of deciding when to disclose such exploits, and it was described as "biased toward" disclosure.

The newly released document states that in order for an exploit to be submitted to into the VEP, it must meet the threshold of being "both newly discovered and not previously known." Previously, the government declined to disclose this threshold.

Three Santa Clara County, California prison guards have been arrested over the "brutal murder" of a mentally ill inmate, the county sheriff announced. The inmate suffered from multiple blunt force injuries as well as internal bleeding.

"The disappointment and disgust that I feel cannot be overstated," said Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith in a statement on Thursday after the arrests were made. She added that the correctional officers killed "an unarmed individual they were entrusted to protect."

The three officers were identified as Rafael Rodriguez, 27, Jereh Lubrin, 28, and Matthew Farris, 27. The sheriff's office is recommending that they be charged with murder, assault under color of authority and conspiracy, according to the San Jose Mercury News, and are being held without bail. They are currently on unpaid leave and are scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday.

The inmate was identified as 31-year-old Michael James Tyree. The county medical examiner, Dr. Joseph O'Hara, determined that Tyree's death was a homicide whose injures - multiple blunt force trauma, visceral lacerations and internal bleeding - were caused by another individual or more, the Associated Press reported.

Last Thursday morning, Tyree was found dead in his cell, though it was determined that he died the previous night.

"A correctional deputy was doing a welfare check, came across an inmate who was unresponsive," said Sgt. James Jensen of the Santa Clara Co. Sheriff's Office to CBS San Francisco. "He called for other deputies. Medical aid was rendered, fire and paramedics were called, and they pronounced our inmate deceased at the scene in the jail."

When a man they believed to be a thief sneaked into their parking lot in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, angry residents caught him, stripped him and beat him with fists, sticks and stones.

They tied him up and doused him in gasoline, according to witnesses, in one of what rights groups and media reports say are an increasing number of mob beatings and lynchings in a country ravaged by crime.

That August night, as locals say is common, three people had sneaked into Valencia's Kerdell residential block. In past such break-ins, thieves have made off with car tires, batteries and radios.

But this time, one resident spotted the trespassers and alerted other neighbors, according to the witnesses.

"'Kill him, give it to him,' they shouted," recounted Trina Castro, 82, in this once middle-class and peaceful area that is now plagued with garbage and graffiti. One reads: "Get ready, thief, here we burn you. Regards, Kerdell."

At least 12 people have died and 13 others have been wounded in separate shootings in Chicago between late Tuesday and early Thursday, including the accidental shooting of an 11-year-old boy, police said.

In the latest fatal shooting, a 39-year-old man was killed and a 52-year-old man was wounded in a shooting around 5:10 a.m. Thursday in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side, said Officer Janel Sedevic, a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman.

The two were inside a building in the 4700 block of South King Drive when they were shot.

The 39-year-old was struck in the head and was pronounced dead at the scene, Sedevic said.
The other man, wounded in the left knee and shin, was taken in fair condition to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

A dog rescuer was recently harassed by local police for walking his dogs in a public park. When a video of the encounter went viral, agents from the Department of Homeland Security were sent to his home, because of alleged "anti-cop" posts that were seen on his Facebook page.

It's time to expose the Black Lives Matter [BLM] movement for what it is: a racist, violent hate group that promotes the execution of police officers. The evidence is in their rhetoric and written on their shirts.


If you take a look at the Black Lives Matter Twitter feed, you'll find photos of activists wearing shirts that say, "Assata Taught Me."

They're referring to infamous cop killer Assata Shakur, otherwise known as Joanne Chesimard, who shot and killed a New Jersey State Trooper back in 1973. In 1977, Shakur was convicted and sentenced to prison but quickly escaped and has been a fugitive in Cuba ever since. She's also on the FBI's most wanted terrorism list. BLM glorifies Shakur as a hero and uses her writings and materials during training sessions. Lee Stranahan has more:

A Portsmouth, Virginia, police officer was fired and was in custody Thursday after he was indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old man in April, police told NBC News.

Officer Stephen D. Rankin, 36, who is white, was also charged with use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in the shooting of William Chapman II, who was black. Chapman, who was shot in the face and the chest, had no alcohol or drugs in his system, and his pockets had been turned inside out, an autopsy found.

Rankin surrendered late Thursday afternoon and was being processed, Portsmouth police Detective Misty Holley told NBC News.

Police Chief Dennis Mook said later in a statement that Rankin had been "terminated" and extended condolences to Chapman's family.

"I understand that this tragedy does not end today," he said. "A family has lost a loved one, an officer and his family's lives have been turned upside down and our community is hurting."

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy and develop it to help hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Syria and other conflicts.

The telecoms tycoon first announced the initiative on Twitter.

"Greece or Italy sell me an island, I'll call its independence and host the migrants and provide jobs for them building their new country," he wrote.

The Kentucky county clerk who is stopping gay couples from being marriedbecause of her literal interpretation of the Bible has herself been married four times and conceived twins by having sex outside her marriage, according to court records.

Kim Davis, 49, who has defied the U.S. Supreme Court and continues to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex-couples, was married and divorced three times — in 1994, 2006 and 2008, according to U.S. News & World Report.

She gave birth to twins five months after she divorced her first husband. The father of those twins was her third husband, according to the records.

Her second husband adopted the twins, the news magazine said.

She has twice married current husband Ed Davis.