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News That Needs a Closer Look, Jamestown, CA (2025)

04/24/2019

"Apple is being accused of using facial recognition software in its Apple Stores to arrest the wrong person for theft — a New York student who’s now suing Apple for $1 billion. And while Apple tells The Verge it doesn’t use facial recognition technology in its stores, the case is weird enough, and there’s enough wiggle room, that it’s not clear if that’s the whole truth.

Ousmane Bah, 18, claims in a lawsuit that he was incorrectly identified as the robber in several Apple Store thefts across multiple states, but denies that he’s the person in the photo that accompanied the warrant for his arrest. Backed by surveillance footage and the testimony of a detective, district attorneys in New York and Boston have already dropped the charges against Bah, the lawsuit states. (He is still being accused of larceny in New Jersey in a pending case, according to the document.)"

The teen was accused of theft in multiple Apple Stores

04/17/2019

"The political class and certain media circles have been celebrating over of the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. To watch their respective reactions is to recognize that, too often, the two groups see themselves as one and the same. Their interests and opinions coincide, and they don’t like having their authority challenged by loose-cannon journalists who reveal inconvenient secrets and expose the powers-that-be to unwelcome scrutiny.

On April 11, British police dragged Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy that had shielded him for years from Swedish s*xual assault charges (later dropped) and, mostly, from the wrath of the U.S. government over WikiLeaks’ work with now-imprisoned whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Together, Assange and Manning exposed state secrets including a U.S. helicopter attack that killed civilians, close ties between the government of Pakistan and the Taliban, and diplomatic cables revealing the U.S. government’s private positions to be very different from those presented to the public.

Assange was “arrested on behalf of the United States authorities,” police announced last Thursday. A new Ecuadorian administration, interested in closer relations with the U.S. and leery of transparency because of reports that have implicated the current president in corruption, seems to have been the precipitating factor."

Journalism is at risk not just from government but from media types who see their jobs as protecting the powerful from embarrassment.

04/16/2019

"The Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act now likely won’t resurface until next year.

Industry groups fiercely opposed the bill, arguing that there isn’t enough scientific evidence to merit banning certain chemicals, including asbestos and lead, from personal-care products. The California Chamber of Commerce branded the bill a “jobs killer.”

“I’m in support of creating jobs in California,” Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), a co-sponsor of the bill, told me. “But that shouldn’t be at the expense of the health and well-being of women, men and children.”"

California lawmakers put off a vote until next year on the Toxic-Free Cosmetics Act as it became clear to supporters they didn’t have enough votes to move the bill forward.

04/16/2019

"News of the incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam and central to the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, was largely overshadowed by a much larger blaze engulfing the Notre Dame Cathedral at the same time.

The Palestine News Agency reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office "expressed its deep regret Monday over the fire that broke out at the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in the center of the French capital of Paris, which caused the collapse of the cathedral tower.""

A fire broke out at the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound's Marwani Prayer Room in Jerusalem just as flames ravaged the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

04/16/2019

"Meg Singer on bringing a legacy of Indigenous organizing to her work at : “It just feels like we’ve been doing something that our ancestors have been doing for a really long time.”"
--Twitter.

At Liberty sits down with Meg Singer, the Indigenous Justice program manager at the ACLU of Montana, and Lillian Alvernaz, the ACLU’s first Indigenous Justice Legal Fellow, to discuss Indigenous justi

04/15/2019

[Note: the article was published April 1. The Journal article was published February 2019. Considering it not a joke.]

"A new study finds that Medicare costs tend to be lower in counties with more forests and shrublands than in counties dominated by other types of land cover. The relationship persists even when accounting for economic, geographic or other factors that might independently influence health care costs, researchers report.

The analysis included county-level health and environmental data from 3,086 of the 3,103 counties in the continental U.S."

A new study finds that Medicare costs tend to be lower in counties with more forests and shrublands than in counties dominated by other types of land cover. The relationship persists even when accounting for economic, geographic or other factors that might independently influence health care costs,....

04/15/2019

How will this affect the babies themselves? How will doctors receive this when they make so much money on organs for transplant from dying premies? Will this affect abortion rights when there is an option for the child to live outside the mother? All questions that need to be addressed.

"“We have proven the use of this technology to support, for the first time, extremely preterm lambs… in a stable, growth-normal state for five days,” said senior author Matthew Kemp in a statement from Tohoku University Hospital.

This research may help treat preterm human babies in the near future. According to the Lancet, nearly 15 million babies around the world were born preterm in 2014. Preterm or premature babies are not simply undersize or underweight—they are underdeveloped in very important ways. Often, their lungs are too small and their hearts not strong enough to function properly. This is especially true if a premature human baby is born at 28 weeks or earlier, which makes them extremely preterm. At this point, they still need gas and nutrient exchange through the placenta in order to grow, which means it’s hard for them to live on their own."

Researchers successfully nurture extremely preterm lamb fetuses outside a natural womb

04/15/2019

This is a huge file dump with some seriously interesting titles. Take some time to check them out. These were all released AFTER Julian Assange's arrest.

Wikileaks releases massive file dump after arrest of Julian Assange. ../ Afghanistan_OEF_Property_List/ 01-Jan-1984 01:01 – Charterhouse/ 01-Jan-1984 01:01 – Iraq_OIF_Property_List/ 01-…

04/14/2019

"Work in Progress - The Missing Money - A Personal History: 1989 - 2019 - I am drafting the last 4 chapters."
--Catherine Austin Fitts

Missing Money: A Personal History – 1989 to 2019 April 7, 2019 Justin Woods Uncategorized 0 C. Austin Fitts, Assistant Housing Secretary, conferring with assistants during a break in her testimony before a Senate subcommittee, 1989. (The New York Times/Andrea Mohin) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “The first step in ...

04/14/2019

"After prevailing in four court battles, at least for now, the Pentagon released a directive in March to prohibit service members who appear transgender or act transgender by failing to meet grooming, uniform, and other military standards for their birth s*x. It also bans people from enlisting in the armed forces if they have transitioned from their “biological s*x” to another gender. People in the military who came out as transgender between 2016 and today can remain in the forces under a grandfather clause.

“It’s absolutely not,” Gleason said when asked if it was a ban. She did say, however, that new recruits will be rejected if they’ve undergone a gender transition, that they cannot transition while in service, and they they must conform to the uniform and fitness standards of their birth s*x."

“We are pleased,” the Pentagon told BuzzFeed News.

04/14/2019

"BETSY DEVOS’S EDUCATION Department quietly dropped requirements for risky for-profit colleges to set aside funds in case the schools closed, according to documents from a lawsuit filed last year. Two of the for-profit networks subsequently shut down without owing the Education Department any money; in one case, the department actually gave $10 million back to a for-profit on the brink of bankruptcy.

Not only did this deprive taxpayers an offset to costs associated with refunding loans, but it also extended the life of the for-profit colleges, allowing them to enroll more students into a doomed enterprise that wasted time, money, and effort, and delivered them nothing of value."

The Obama administration initially dithered while for-profit colleges preyed on students, but eventually it cracked down on the sector. Not Betsy DeVos.

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