Society's Child
Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes claimed the project will prevent them from practicing religious ceremonies at Oahe Lake which they say is surrounded by sacred ground. District Court Judge James Boasberg stated there was no imminent harm to the tribes' religious practices as oil is not flowing through the pipeline yet.
The ruling will allow Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the $3.8 billion, 1,170 mile pipeline, to finish the final 1,100ft (335m) connection under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, completing the project. The company's stock rose 0.3 percent after the announcement, according to Seeking Alpha.
The measure would put the Alaska, Cascades and Hawaiian volcano observatories into a connected system and create a 24-hour Volcano Watch Office to provide ongoing situational awareness of active volcanoes in the U.S. and its territories.
A Senate energy committee release says the Alaska Volcano Observatory has long been underfunded and is among the busiest observatories in the world. The Cascades observatory, in Washington, monitors volcanoes in that state, Oregon and Idaho, and two of the more active volcanoes, Kilauea and Mauna Loa, are monitored by the Hawaiian observatory.
The bill is from Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Maria Cantwell of Washington and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, all energy committee members.
Of 44 people on the bus, 30 were pronounced dead at the scene and two died in hospital, the fire department said, adding that 12 people were still being treated in hospitals around Taipei, the capital.
Many of the passengers were elderly, although the age range was early 20s to late 60s, according to city authorities.
The trip had been arranged by the Tieh Lien Hua Travel Agency, according to Taiwan's tourism bureau.
An official with the agency said the tourists were "likely" all from Taiwan, but that it was still looking at passenger information.
Rutherford County Schools received several messages about David Colin on Wednesday. Colin is accused of posting on Facebook, "the only good Trump supporter is a dead Trump supporter," on Facebook Nov. 9 at 9:29 a.m.
Colin is not employed by RCS, but is contracted through PESG. The schools said Colin is no longer permitted to work in the district.
The school district has notified PESG about Colin. The contractor indicted that it will conduct an internal investigation of the allegations immediately. "Information was presented to us by the school district," a PESG spokesperson said. "We are investigating it."
Colin is also accused of writing this on Facebook on Jan. 16:
I spent a lot of time today thinking about the state of this mess. There are huge numbers of people that are upset, mad, angry, (pretty much every negative word), but what I have not seen is a plan. Everyone is looking for leadership to start this off, but there is no one carrying the banner. Without that we will all settle in to becoming angry hateful people and there will be no solutions. So, where do we go from here? Rallies and demonstrations are pretty much futile, since the lunatics just laugh at us knowing we haven't the guts to stand up ad take the actions needed. Writing and complaining falls on deaf ears. Not until the first shot is fired will the recovery begin.
Sidd Bikkannavar - who has worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) for the past 10 years - was expecting a speedy re-entry into the United States when he returned from South America on a personal trip, particularly because he is enrolled in the Global Entry program, which allows citizens to have expedited entry into the country after undergoing thorough background checks.
However, a smooth process wasn't at all what Bikkannavar received when he arrived at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport on January 30 - just over a week into the Trump administration and shortly after the president's travel ban had been chaotically rolled out at airports across the country.
The scientist, whose expertise is on a type of optics technology which will be used on the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, told the Verge that he was detained by CBP agents when he tried to enter the US after a trip to South America, where he had pursued his hobby of racing solar-powered cars.
Comment: Was Mr. Bikkannavar's detainment and search provided as an example? Were the parameters of the initial executive order confusingly inconclusive? One would think Mr. B's credentials should have afforded him at least a phone call.
After incidents of students forking each other in the cafeteria and other bad behavior, Dalmas pulled the utensils out of the school and instituted other "extreme" security measures that are irking some parents, WPXI reports.
"They are taking the kids' utensils from them for lunch, telling them to eat with their fingers and they are not allowed to use bathrooms," parent Emanuel Rodriguez said. "It's just ridiculous."School officials also reportedly revoked hall passes and took other measures to limit access to bathrooms over problems with fights and drug use.
Student Hailey Kwiatanowski seemed to understand exactly why the drastic action was necessary. "We've had multiple school fights in the last few days. We've had girls get jumped, police here, ambulances here," she said.
Rodriguez still thinks school security is overboard. "They make these kids come down here and stand outside in a line, just to enter the building," he said, adding that school officials have not discussed problems with parents. "No parent has been updated about anything."
President Rodrigo Duterte's allies have been pushing for the age of criminal responsibility to be lowered. The draft bill was introduced by house speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who said the current age of 15 was "pampering ... youth offenders who commit crimes knowing they can get away with it."
Another draft bill under consideration aims to restore the death penalty.
Children in the Philippines can be arrested and detained from the age of nine - a law which has affected over 50,000 youngsters since 1995, according to UNICEF. It's unclear whether lawmakers would seek to apply the death penalty to children.
Comment: Adult criminal status at age nine...fourth graders by western standards.

In this Feb. 1, 2017 file photo, a fire set by demonstrators protesting a scheduled speaking appearance by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos burns on Sproul Plaza on the University of California, Berkeley campus
According to the Associated Press, police said a small masked group wearing black showed up as night fell to riot against a talk given by Milo Yiannopoulos, editor of Breitbart News.
The identities of the masked rioters are still unknown, and the FBI has been called in to assist in the investigation, Berkeleyside.com reported.
Nearly 1,500 people were protesting peacefully outside the building when the group joined in and began moving metal barricades. Officials said they had thrown the barriers through the building's windows within minutes of their arrival.
Comment: See also:
- Breitbart Editor Milo Placed on Extremist Watchlist
- Post-truth world: Liberal media trying to shift blame for Berkeley riots to right-wing paramilitaries
- Crazy liberals 'fighting fascism' riot at UC Berkeley amid protest of Breitbart editor's speech
- Antifa, the 'anti-fascist' group behind violent Berkeley protest of entertainer Milo Yiannopoulos
- 'Riot felt like war zone': Campus police questioned over restraint in Berkeley riot that cancelled Breitbart editor Milo's speech
"When we say overdoses, we usually mean heroin, but that included alcohol, prescription medications, etcetera," Mitchelle Burmeister, spokesman for Metro Emergency Services, told The Courier-Journal.
Burmeister said 34 of the 52 patients were transported to a hospital, and blamed the high number of overdoses already reported in 2017 on the increasing amount of drugs that are readily available. According to the report there were 695 cases through the month of January, an increase of 33 percent from last year.
Jeff Lytle, 42, wrote a message apparently intended for a hitman named 'Shayne' asking him to kill his family for a $1.5 million life insurance policy, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office cited by KIRO 7.
"Hey Shayne how's it going. You remember you said that you would help me kill my wife. I'm going to take you up on that offer," the text message read, according to court documents.
Lytle also allegedly told the hitman that there would be a bonus if he killed his daughter as her life policy is valued at $500,000.
However, the message, which also discussed splitting the money 50/50, was accidentally sent to Lytle's former boss, who quickly contacted police.














Comment: Another post from December 12th as reported by The Blaze: