Media Today

[Richard Smith]

Radicalized leftists continue to rage for political censorship after Trump's magnificent performance on CNN.  They are enraged that CNN would allow the leading contender for the presidency to speak on their network.  You can't make that up.  It is blatant election interference in a way Putin never dreamed.  State controlled media.  Trump was magnificent.  The audience was roaring and giving him standing ovations as he exposed the lies the hypocrisy of the lightweight CNN commentator.  Why doesn't Old Joe go on Fox News and show us how he defends his disastrous record in a real interview.  His handlers won't even allow him to speak to the friendly leftist media outlets.  Sad. 

[Rick Plant]

Radicalized leftists continue to rage for political censorship after Trump's magnificent performance on CNN.  They are enraged that CNN would allow the leading contender for the presidency to speak on their network.  You can't make that up.  It is blatant election interference in a way Putin never dreamed.  State controlled media.  Trump was magnificent.  The audience was roaring and giving him standing ovations as he exposed the lies the hypocrisy of the lightweight CNN commentator.  Why doesn't Old Joe go on Fox News and show us how he defends his disastrous record in a real interview.  His handlers won't even allow him to speak to the friendly leftist media outlets.  Sad.

More bogus propaganda above. 

FBI raids Trump Tower condo owned by two Russian businessmen
Thursday’s raid at Sunny Isles Beach, Florida residence assisted by local law enforcement
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-raid-trump-tower-florida-b2338356.html

[Rick Plant]

An Arby's Employee's Frozen Body Was Found in a Walk-In Freezer
The incident, which occurred at a Louisiana location, is being investigated by police.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/arbys-employee-found-dead-in-walk-in-freezer/452066

[Rick Plant]

Powerful Cyclone Mocha makes landfall in Myanmar, tearing off roofs and killing at least 3

Thousands of people have hunkered down in monasteries, pagodas and schools, seeking shelter from a powerful cyclone that slammed into the coast of Myanmar



DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Thousands of people hunkered down Sunday in monasteries, pagodas and schools, seeking shelter from a powerful storm that slammed into the coast of Myanmar, tearing roofs off buildings and killing at least three people.

Cyclone Mocha made landfall Sunday afternoon in Myanmar’s Rakhine state near Sittwe township with winds of up to 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, Myanmar’s Meteorological Department said. The storm previously passed over Bangladesh's Saint Martin's Island, causing damage and injuries, but turned away from the country's shores before landfall.

As night fell, the extent of the damage in Sittwe was not clear. Earlier in the day, high winds crumpled cell phone towers, cutting off communications in much of the area.

In videos collected by local media before communications were cut off, deep water races through streets while wind lashes trees and pulls boards off roofs.

Rakhine-based media reported that streets were flooded, trapping people in low-lying areas in their homes as worried relatives outside the township appealed for rescue.

Myanmar’s military information office said the storm had damaged houses, electrical transformers, cell phone towers, boats and lampposts in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships. It said the storm also tore roofs off of sport buildings on the Coco Islands, about 425 kilometers (264 miles) southwest of the country’s largest city, Yangon.

More than 4,000 of Sittwe's 300,000 residents were evacuated to other cities and more than 20,000 people were sheltering in sturdy buildings such as monasteries, pagodas and schools located on the city's highlands, said Tin Nyein Oo, who is volunteering in shelters in Sittwe.

Lin Lin, the chairman of a local charitable foundation, said there was not enough food in the shelters in Sittwe after more people arrived than expected.

Titon Mitra, the U.N. Development Program representative in Myanmar, tweeted: “Mocha has made landfall. 2m people at risk. Damage and losses are expected to be extensive. We are ready to respond and will need unhindered access to all affected communities.”

Myanmar state television reported that the military government is preparing to send food, medicine and medical personnel to the storm-hit area. After battering Rakhine, the cyclone weakened and was forecast to hit the northwestern state of Chin and the central regions on Monday.

On Sunday morning, several deaths caused by wind and rain were reported in Myanmar.

A rescue team from the country’s eastern Shan state announced on its Facebook social media page that they had recovered the bodies of a couple who were buried when a landslide caused by heavy rain hit their house in Tachileik township. Local media reported that a man was crushed to death when a banyan tree fell on him in Pyin Oo Lwin township in the central Mandalay region.

Authorities in the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar, which lay in the storm's predicted path, said earlier that they had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people, but by early afternoon it appeared that the storm would mostly miss the country as it veered east, said Azizur Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department in Dhaka.

“The level of risk has reduced to a great extent in our Bangladesh,” he told reporters.

Strong winds accompanied by rains continued in the Saint Martin's Island in the Bay of Bengal in the afternoon, but feared tidal surges did not take place because the cyclone started crossing Bangladesh coast at low tide, Dhaka-based Jamuna TV station reported.

About a dozen islanders were injured, while some 300 homes were either destroyed or damaged, leading Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo reported. One woman was critically wounded, it said.

U.N. agencies and aid workers in Bangladesh had prepositioned tons of dry food and dozens of ambulances with mobile medical teams in sprawling refugee camps that house more than 1 million members of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority who fled persecution in Myanmar.

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar with a storm surge that devastated populated areas around the Irrawaddy River Delta. At least 138,000 people died and tens of thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune city, said cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are becoming more intense more quickly, in part because of climate change.

Climate scientists say cyclones can now retain their energy for many days. Cyclone Amphan in eastern India in 2020 continued to travel over land as a strong cyclone and caused extensive devastation.

“As long as oceans are warm and winds are favorable, cyclones will retain their intensity for a longer period,” Koll said.

Tropical cyclones, which are called hurricanes or typhoons in other regions, are among the world’s most devastating natural disasters when they hit densely populated coastal areas.

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/bangladesh-myanmar-bracing-cyclone-mocha-set-make-landfall-99312758

[Rick Plant]

Colorado driver tries switching places with dog to avoid DUI



A DUI suspect in Colorado tried unsuccessfully to pin the rap on his dog, according to police in eastern Colorado.

Cops in Springfield, Colo., wrote on Facebook that the attempted switcheroo happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday when officers pulled over a vehicle driving 52 mph in a 30 mph zone.

“The driver attempted to switch places with his dog who was in the passenger seat, as the SPD officer approached and watched the entire process,” law enforcement officials said Sunday. “The male party then exited the passenger side of the vehicle and claimed he was not driving.”

When police asked the suspect if he’d consumed alcohol, he ran away, abandoning both vehicle and pooch. He was caught about 60 feet from where the incident began.

Charges against the unidentified driver, who allegedly had outstanding warrants, include suspicion of DUI and resisting arrest.

“The dog was given to an acquaintance of the driver to take care of while the party was in jail,” police said. “The dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning.”

© New York Daily News

[Rick Plant]

New threat to privacy? Scientists sound alarm about DNA tool



A recently developed technique can glean a huge amount of information from tiny samples of genetic material called environmental DNA, or eDNA, that humans and animals leave behind everywhere -- including in the air.

The tool could lead to a range of medical and scientific advances, and could even help track down criminals, according to the authors of a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

But it also poses a vast range of concerns around consent, privacy and surveillance, they added.

Humans spread their DNA -- which carries genetic information specific to each person -- everywhere, by shedding skin or hair cells, coughing out droplets, or in wastewater flushed down toilets.

In recent years, scientists have been increasingly collecting the eDNA of wild animals, in the hopes of helping threatened species.

For the new research, scientists at the University of Florida's Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience had been focused on collecting the eDNA of endangered sea turtles.

But the international team of researchers inadvertently collected a massive amount of human eDNA, which they called "human genetic bycatch".

David Duffy, a wildlife disease genomic professor at the Whitney Laboratory who led the project, said they were "consistently surprised" by the amount and quality of the human eDNA they collected.

"In most cases the quality is almost equivalent to if you took a sample from a person," he said.

The scientists collected human eDNA from nearby oceans, rivers and towns, as well as from areas far from human settlements.

Struggling to find a sample not tainted by humans, they went to a section of a remote Florida island inaccessible to the public.

It was free of human DNA -- at least until a member of the team walked barefoot along the beach. They were then able to detect eDNA from a single footprint in the sand.

In Duffy's native Ireland, the team found human DNA all along a river, with the exception of the remote mountain stream at its source.

Taking samples from the air of a veterinary hospital, the team captured eDNA that matched the staff, their animal patient and viruses common in animals.

One of the study's authors, Mark McCauley of the Whitney Laboratory, said that by sequencing the DNA samples, the team was able to identify if a person had a greater risk of diseases such as autism and diabetes.

"All of this very personal, ancestral and health-related data is freely available in the environment, and it's simply floating around us in the air right now," McCauley told an online press conference.

"We specifically did not examine our sequences in a way that we would be able to pick out specific individuals because of the ethical issues," he said.

But that would "definitely" be possible in the future, he added.

"The question is how long it takes until we're at that stage."

The researchers emphasised the potential benefits of collecting human eDNA, such as tracking cancer mutations in wastewater, discovering long-hidden archaeological sites or revealing the true culprit of a crime using only the DNA they left in a room.

Natalie Ram, a law professor at the University of Maryland not involved in the research, said the findings "should raise serious concern about genetic privacy and the appropriate limits of policing".

"Exploiting involuntarily shed genetic information for investigative aims risks putting all of us under perpetual genetic surveillance," she wrote in a commentary on the study.

The authors of the study shared her concerns.

McCauley warned harvesting human eDNA without consent could be used to track individual people or even target "vulnerable populations or ethnic minorities".

It is why the team decided to sound the alarm, they said in a statement, calling for policymakers and scientists to start working on regulation that could address the "ethical quagmire".

© Agence France-Presse

[Rick Plant]

Ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes loses another bid to stay out of prison



Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has failed in her last-ditch effort to yet again avoid prison, according to numerous reports.

Holmes was convicted early last year on four counts of fraud in connection with her role in the blood-testing startup and sentenced to 11 years in prison in November. She was ordered to surrender to custody on April 27.

She had sought to remain free while she appeals her conviction, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected her request.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila at the time of Holmes’ sentencing ordered her to surrender to authorities on April 27, but a last-minute legal maneuver nearly three weeks ago delayed the start of her sentence.

Holmes was convicted at the end of a 46-day trial that, according to The AP’s report, “cast a spotlight on a culture of greed and hubris that infected Silicon Valley as technology became a more pervasive influence on society and the economy during the past 20 years.”

Her prison sentence will separate her from her partner William “Billy” Evans and their 1-year-old son, William and 3-month-old daughter, Invicta.

Ramesh “Sunny" Balwani, Holmes’ former lover who served as Theranos’ top lieutenant, was convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy in a separate trial last July.

Balwani started serving his 13-year sentence in April.

Holmes during testimony in her defense said she founded Theranos as a teenage Stanford University dropout in 2003 and accused Balwani of emotional and sexual abuse.

She raised nearly $1 billion from high-profile investors including Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch.

Holmes’ lawyers are fighting her conviction on allegations that mistakes and misconduct materially affected the outcome of her trial.

https://www.rawstory.com/elizabeth-holmes-2660279694/