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Binoculars

US: Detroit Police Will Now Ignore Burglar Alarms

Mike Schuster
Minyanville
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:47 UTC
Robocop
© Minyanville

The Detroit Free Press reported today that local law enforcement will now treat burglar alarms with the same indifference as the public treats car alarms.

And it's not because there's just nothing left to steal.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. announced that 98% of all burglar alarms that his department responds to are false. (Though he never mentioned the percentage of the alarms police don't respond to.) From here on in, any triggered alarm will require a verified response before dispatch sends a cruiser to the location.

Detroit Police Commander Todd Bettison told the Press, "We at the police department are working hard to serve the citizens; however, nowadays we have to rely more on technology to help solve our problems because we're not getting any more resources." Adding, "We've been looking at this for a long time and from what we've observed this is definitely the way to go. Verified response will take us to the next level."
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Bad Guys

UK Riots: Two Men Jailed for Four Years for Inciting Rioting on Facebook


Metro
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:15 UTC
Jordan Blackshaw Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan
© PAJordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan have been jailed for four years for using Facebook to incite rioting
Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan have each been jailed for four years after causing 'panic and revulsion' by using Facebook to incite rioting.

The two men were arrested after trying to organise disorder on the social networking site.
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Smoking

Rampant and Agressive Anti-smoking Propaganda is Spreading: Russia Prepares for a Total Smoking Ban


RIA Novosti
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:34 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti. Vitaliy BezrukikhRussia prepares for a total smoking ban
By the end of the year, the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development will submit a bill to the State Duma that could introduce serious complications into the lives of Russian smokers. Cigarettes will become more expensive, they will only be sold in large stores and smokers will be able to light up without considering the people around them in their own apartments and on the street. Experts maintain that the new standards conform to the framework of the WHO Convention on Tobacco Control, which was signed by 157 countries, and they hope to reduce the number of smokers in Russia.

Smokers are driven into their homes

Beginning in 2014, a total smoking ban may be imposed in long-distance trains and cruise ships. The ministry's press service reported on this Friday evening, as well as on other measures to curb smoking, having laid out the content of a new bill on protecting public health against the harmful effects of tobacco use.
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Cult

Dominionism: A 'dangerous' Christian movement influencing Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry?

Elizabeth Flock
The Washington Post
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:46 UTC
michelle bachman
© APRepublican presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) holds up a newspaper saying that she won the GOP Straw Poll as she speaks at the Black Hawk County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner in Waterloo, Iowa, Aug. 14, 2011.

According to an article published by the Daily Beast Sunday, GOP presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have "deep ties" to a "fringe fundamentalist movement" known as Dominionism.

Dominionism is defined as the tendency of politically active conservative Christians to try to control government. Writer Michelle Goldberg simplifies the definition down to: "a movement ... which says Christians should rule the world."

Goldberg is the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and she makes her case for applying the controversial term to both candidates by listing the ways Dominionism has supposedly influenced them.
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Sherlock

Thai hotel deaths remain a mystery

Zoe Daniel
ABC News
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:35 UTC
Thai authorities have released a final report into the mysterious deaths of five tourists and a tour guide in the northern city of Chiang Mai earlier this year.

But despite a five-month investigation, the report failed to identify the exact cause of the deaths.

The report says that four people who died at the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai in January and February may have been exposed to the same toxic chemical or gas but they cannot be sure.

"As difficult as it may be to accept, ultimately, the precise causes for the deaths and illnesses cannot be definitively identified or confirmed," the report said, following the investigation by various Thai ministries with the help of the World Health Organisation.

The report listed rodenticide, used in pest control, and chemicals such as those found in pesticides as possible causes.

Authorities said they could not exclude the possibility that an elderly British couple, found dead at the same hotel as two of the other victims, had also been poisoned, although investigators could not establish a direct link.
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Sherlock

US arrest over collar-bomb hoax

Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop
ABC News
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:19 UTC
Image
© AAP: SuppliedMadeleine Pulver endured 10 hours attached to a fake bomb before police were able to free her.
An Australian man has been arrested in the United States over the Madeleine Pulver collar-bomb hoax on Sydney's north shore two weeks ago.

Eighteen-year-old Ms Pulver spent 10 hours with a fake bomb chained to her neck at her family's Mosman home.

Paul "Doug" Peters was arrested by FBI agents, after a request by New South Wales detectives, at his ex-wife's home in the US town of La Grange, north-east of Louisville in Kentucky early this morning (Australian time).

Police say 50-year-old flew out of Australia on August 8, five days after Ms Pulver was targeted.

Assistant Commissioner David Hudson says the man was an Australian citizen who travelled for business between Sydney and the US, and had family in both countries.
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Cloud Lightning

Weather traps investigators at An-12 crash site in Russia's Far East


RIA Novosti
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:14 UTC
Image
© Photo Emergencies MinistryAt the sight of An-12 crash
Investigators cannot leave the site where an aging Antonov An-12 cargo plane crashed in Russia's Far East last week due to poor weather conditions, a spokesman for the local emergencies ministry's department said.

"Investigators, forensics and aviation experts - in all, about 40 people, cannot leave the Omsukchan region. They are forced to remain in a tent camp some five kilometers from the crash scene. It is raining heavily and visibility is close to zero," the spokesman said.

The crash site is located in the Omsukchan region, a remote and hard-to-reach area in Russia's Far East.
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Chess

Iran: Ahmadinejad warns U.S., Israel of 'crushing response' if attacked


RIA Novosti
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:59 UTC
Image
© Reuters/ Ali HashishoIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday once again warned the United States and Israel against even contemplating a strike against the Islamic nation.

"They want to do it, but they know our power. They know that we would give them a very decisive response," he said in an exclusive interview with the Russia Today news channel.

"We would give them a crushing response," he continued. "We will defend ourselves with our full capability. But I hope that will never come. There is no reason for war, why should they attack us?"

On the issue of nuclear weapons Ahmadinejad said Iran would never seek to acquire a nuclear deterrent.

"We do not want nuclear weapons. We do not seek nuclear weapons. This is an inhuman weapon," he said, adding that "nuclear weapons are the weapons of the previous century."
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Camcorder

John F Kennedy's wife in her own words: A series of secret audio tapes made by Jacqueline Kennedy are to be made public

Mike Parker
Express.co.uk
Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:00 UTC
Image
© UnknownPresident John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie
A series of secret audio tapes made by Jacqueline Kennedy are to be made public in a TV special that will blow the lid off her private life with assassinated husband President John F Kennedy.

They were recorded with leading historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr within months of the assassination on November 22, 1963, and have been sealed in a vault at the Kennedy Library in Boston until now.

Jackie O, as the world came to know her after she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis five years later, ordered that the tapes should not be revealed until 50 years after her death. But although she died from cancer aged 64 in May 1994, her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, has agreed to release them to US television network giant ABC.
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Info

Meet the British Girl Who Dozes Off for 2 Months at a Stretch


Asian News International
Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00 UTC
sleep
A British girl, who suffers from the rare Kleine-Levin Syndrome, is said to nod off to sleep for two months at a time.

Lily Clarke, 21, a student, has slept through university exams, Christmas, New Year and even her own 18th birthday party after falling asleep a few days before.

Her mum Adele, 47, said the condition came on in 2007 after the family went for a meal following a day's ice-skating.

"Before the food arrived Lily had fallen asleep in her chair. We couldn't wake her and had to carry her from the restaurant," the Sun quoted her as saying.
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