Society's ChildS


Oscar

Lights out at the Statue of Liberty occurs hours before 'Day Without A Woman' protest


RT
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 11:58 UTC
Statue of Liberty
© Brendan McDermid / Reuters
Without warning, lights at the Statue of Liberty went dark the evening before nationwide Day Without A Woman marches are scheduled. But rumors that the outage was in solidarity with protesters dwindled when the lights came back on less than an hour later.

The bizarre outage left people speculating whether the lights were shut off in solidarity with the planned demonstrations. So far the National Parks Service is yet to comment.

Comment: See also: National strike: Over 100 protests organized against Trump, with more to come

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Heart - Black

General Motors to scale back 1,100 workers in Michigan & shift production to Tennessee


RT
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 20:02 UTC
Auto plant
© Mike Stone / Reuters
General Motors will layoff another 1,100 Michigan workers as part of its shift in domestic production, the company has announced, despite a promised $1 billion investment designed to add jobs. Production will be moved to an assembly plant in Tennessee.

The Lansing Delta Township plant currently employs 3,144 workers to build three SUVs on the same platform: the Chevrolet Traverse, the Buick Enclave and the GMC Acadia. However, in 2016, GM added 800 jobs at its Spring Hill, Tennessee plant, which is tasked with building a new, smaller version of the GMC Acadia. After the Lansing retooling, it will continue building the Enclave and Traverse, GM spokesman Tom Wickham said in a statement.

GM has been scaling back both production and employment because of lower sales in the US, CNN money reported.

The Lansing Delta cuts are the second round of layoffs this month, and the fourth since November. On Friday, GM laid off 1,300 workers at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, as the company phased out the second shift. Many of those who were laid off were temporary workers who had been promised full-time, permanent jobs by GM and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, according to the World Socialist Web Site.
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Info

Western propaganda exposed: Survey shows Crimean Tatars' real opinions

translated by J. Arnoldski
Izvestiya / Fort Russ News
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 21:59 UTC
Crimean Tatar
The majority of Crimean Tatars, 61%, support Russian President Vladimir Putin. Around one third, 31%, say that their attitude towards the head of state has improved. Such data has been released as part of the sociological study of the Federal Agency of Nationalities Affairs. The survey was conducted between December 2016 and January 2017.

Among those (around 50%) who believe that the federal government wants to help resolve Crimean Tatars' problems, 85% evaluate the situation in Crimea as generally positive, the head of the federal agency, Igor Barinov, has reported.

Crimean Tatars currently make up 13% of the peninsula's population. According to the survey, 70% of them have successfully adapted to life in Russia.
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Newspaper

Casey Anthony breaks her silence about case, acquittal, life


NBC News
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 22:42 UTC
Casey Anthony
© Josh Repogle / Associated PressCasey Anthony poses for a portrait next to a photo of her daughter, Caylee, in her West Palm Beach, Florida, bedroom on Feb. 13.
Casey Anthony knows that much of the world believes she killed her 2-year-old daughter, despite her acquittal. But nearly nine years later, she insists she doesn't know how the last hours of Caylee's life unfolded.

"Caylee would be 12 right now. And would be a total badass," she told The Associated Press in one of a series of exclusive interviews. "I'd like to think she'd be listening to classic rock, playing sports" and putting up with no nonsense.

Comment:

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X

WH statement in praise of Exxon's $20B investment taken from company's press release


RT
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 02:03 UTC
exxonmobil
© The Country Caller
The world's biggest oil explorer says it is set to invest $20 billion in the US Gulf Coast region, creating thousands of jobs. The White House said the exact same thing, as it plagiarized ExxonMobil's statement.

On Monday, Exxon Mobil announced it would be expanding its manufacturing capacity at 11 new and existing sites in Texas and Louisiana as a part of its Growing the Gulf initiative. With a $20 billion investment, they are expected to create 35,000 temporary construction jobs and 12,000 full-time positions in the region.

Half an hour after Exxon made the announcement, the White House also released a statement, praising the initiative.

"This is exactly the kind of investment, economic development and job creation that will help put Americans back to work," Trump said in a statement released Monday.
Buy American & hire American are the principals at the core of my agenda, which is: JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! Thank you @exxonmobil.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 6, 2017
"Many of the products that will be manufactured here in the United States by American workers will be exported to other countries, improving our balance of trade. This is a true American success story," Trump said.

Comment: Exxon should see the 'copy' as a compliment. It should be delighted with the publicity and a public endorsement by the president. The Administration could have asked permission to use and credit Exxon for that paragraph. Hard to know just who was complaining.

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Bell

Supreme Court: Jury secrecy denied for racial and ethnic bias, altering 6th Amendment interpretation


RT
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 05:07 UTC
The supremes
© Jim Lo Scalzo/Reuters"The Supremes"
A Colorado man convicted of unlawful sexual conduct will get a new trial, after the Supreme Court ruled that states must now take secret jury deliberations into account when they find evidence of racial and ethnic bias.

On Monday, a divided Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in the case of Miguel Angel Peña-Rodriguez, who was convicted of three misdemeanors for harassing and trying to grope two teenage sisters in a dark racetrack bathroom. Peña-Rodriguez was sentenced to two years' probation, but still maintains that he is innocent.

After the verdict, two other jurors submitted sworn statements, saying that one juror, who is referred to as "HC" in court documents, made a number of biased statements about Peña-Rodriguez behind the closed doors of the jury room.

According to the affidavits by the two jurors, HC said that Peña-Rodriguez was guilty "because he's Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want." The jurors also described how HC knew Peña-Rodriguez was guilty, because, according to him, "nine times out of 10 Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls." HC also called into question the testimony of Peña-Rodriguez's main witness, because he was "an illegal."

Peña-Rodriguez says that HC's bias views deprived him of a fair trial, but under Colorado law, those statements fall under the state's "no impeachment" rule, which bars jurors from testifying about statements made during deliberations. Similar rules are found in one form or another in every state, as well as the District of Columbia.

Comment: A legal damned if you do, damned if you don't. A qualifier, perhaps?

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Smoking

Cardiff, UK prison smoking ban blamed for rise in violence, disruptive behavior

Nick Dorman
The Mirror, UK
Sun, 05 Mar 2017 20:41 UTC
HMP Cardiff prison
© Western Mail
Report by the Independent Monitoring Board blames tobacco withdrawal amongst inmates for a series of incidents

The smoking ban in jails has sparked a rise in assaults and ­vandalism by cig-craving lags. An inspectors' report blames tobacco withdrawal for a series of incidents.

HMP Cardiff was plunged into darkness when prisoners dismantled a kettle to get sparks to light homemade cigarettes and tripped a fusebox. The desperate inmates had fashioned smokes out of tea and shredded nicotine patches after smoking was banned last year.

The report by the Independent Monitoring Board said: "There is no proof of a direct link with the ban.

"But the indirect consequences of the increase in ­offences such as damage to property, assaults, possession of unauthorised articles and disobeying lawful orders could be due to stress resulting from tobacco withdrawal. Some prisoners have a long history of smoking and their ­attempts to continue in the face of the ban lead to further numbers of disciplinary offences."

Comment: Another smoking ban based on lies and junk science. See:

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Pistol

LAPD cops turn off body cams; bystanders film them killing homeless man

Justin Gardner
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 20:48 UTC
LAPD police tape
"He's not gonna die."

Those were the tragically unprophetic words of the person who filmed Los Angeles cops gunning down a 50-year-old homeless man on Saturday, March 4.

The local ABC7 station reports that an altercation broke out at midday at an intersection in downtown LA, with two "gentlemen, angry and antagonizing each other down the street," according to a nearby business owner.

The homeless man was carrying a large pipe, and someone called 911. Two LAPD cops showed up, and, according to police reports, tried to subdue the man with a Taser, although the video shows no evidence of that. Perhaps they attempted to tase him before the video started.

As the video begins, the people recording see it as a comical situation. Indeed, the homeless man appears to be physically unfit and not much of a threat to the armed officers. The two officers have weapons drawn, apparently telling him to drop the pipe.
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Pistol

ShotSpotter: The all-knowing surveillance system that detects gunfire all across America

Allison Barrie
New York Post
Tue, 07 Mar 2017 19:39 UTC
gunshot
© Getty Images
Are those lamps on your local streets detecting when guns are fired? American cities are being upgraded to pinpoint shooters and help police fight gun violence.

Like something out of the futuristic policing TV show "APB," new tech can locate the exact position where a gun is fired and report it immediately to law enforcement.

Called ShotSpotter, this is a tool that can be used by officials to respond even faster to the aid of gun violence victims — minutes can be the difference between life and death. And it provides police with far more information in advance.

Before arriving on the scene, the tech tells police the exact location of the shooter or shooters, the type of weapon, and number of shots fired. This sort of data can help law enforcement respond more effectively and reduce the risk to the officers responding.

Militaries use a similar technology to defeat enemy snipers. In war zones, these systems pinpoint the location of a hidden sniper, using the sound of the gunshot.

Comment: Police state: NYC installs microphones on streets for 'gun crime'

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Red Flag

Facebook to begin flagging 'fake news' reported by users

Jessica Guynn
USA Today
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 19:46 UTC
facebook
© Paul Sakuma, Associated Press
Facebook has begun flagging fake news. Or as Facebook calls it: "disputed" news.

A warning label is being slapped on articles that clearly have no basis in fact or reality — at least some of them.

The giant social network first promised to roll out a "disputed" tag in December. Over the weekend, it made its debut in the U.S. Facebook declined to comment.

Among the disputed offenders that people spotted on Facebook: A fictionalized story, "Trump's Android Device Believed To Be Source of Recent White House Leaks," from a fictional publication, "The Seattle Tribune." The story carried a disputed label with links to fact-checking services that explained why it was not true.
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