July 5, 2016

Nation’s Dogs Vow To Keep Their Shit Together During 4th Of July Fireworks

WASHINGTON—Admitting that their behavior in previous years had left them embarrassed and ashamed, the nation’s dogs announced Thursday that they intend on keeping their shit together during this year’s Fourth of July fireworks displays.

“Though we recognize we have not always demonstrated the most poise and self-control on this particular holiday, we want to assure everyone that this will finally be the year we don’t completely lose it and freak out upon hearing the booming of distant fireworks,” said Duchess, a 6-year-old cocker spaniel, adding that the country’s 80 million dogs aim to avoid cowering under the coffee table or uncontrollably urinating on the kitchen floor in a moment of pure panic after neighbors light off firecrackers or bottle rockets.

“We’ve been preparing for the past few months, and we think we’ll finally be able to maintain our composure this time around. We can’t promise that we won’t whimper a little or try to jump up and sit next to you on the couch, but we’re definitely not going to sprint in circles around the living room or howl continuously until the noises stop.”

The nation’s dogs concluded by acknowledging they could not guarantee that they won’t go completely apeshit the next time the doorbell rings.

http://www.theonion.com/article/nations-dogs-vow-keep-their-shit-together-during-4-50578

July 4, 2016

Elite Republicans tried to ignore them. Now they're shaping Donald Trump's immigration policy

For decades, immigration hard-liners have felt sidelined and taken for granted by Republican presidential candidates, left with dog whistles and policy crumbs. But Donald Trump’s ascent to the top of the Republican ticket has changed their fortunes.

Longtime advocates for shutting the door to new immigrants now hold crucial positions in Trump’s campaign, and many feel, for the first time in recent memory, they have a candidate who is willing to speak plainly about reducing immigration flows and offers their clearest shot yet at influencing, perhaps even drastically altering, U.S. immigration policy.

Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff and poster child for workplace raids and traffic stops, earned a prized seat on Trump’s airplane a few months ago, spending hours with his new close friend. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the fiercest opponent of GOP-backed “amnesty” bills in Congress for the last decade, now smiles and demurs when asked whether he might serve as Trump’s running mate or settle for a Cabinet position.

And NumbersUSA, long on the fringes of Washington lobbying groups with its stance that legal immigration should be reduced, now crows that all those powerful consultants had it wrong when they insisted that the GOP needed to compromise on raising immigration levels to win a presidential election.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-immigration-players-20160704-snap-story.html

July 4, 2016

China puts finishing touches to world's biggest radio telescope

China has hoisted the final piece into position on what will be the world’s largest radio telescope, which it will use to explore space and help in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

The Five Hundred Metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or Fast, is the size of 30 football fields and has been cut out of a mountain in the south-western province of Guizhou.

Scientists would start debugging and trials of the telescope, said Zheng Xiaonian, deputy head of the National Astronomical Observation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which built the telescope.

“The project has the potential to search for more strange objects to better understand the origin of the universe and boost the global hunt for extraterrestrial life,” Zheng said, according to the Xinhua news agency.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/03/china-puts-finishing-touches-to-worlds-biggest-radio-telescope

July 4, 2016

Mr. Trump’s fake charity

DONALD TRUMP, perhaps the greatest braggart ever to aspire to national office, is hardly shy about flaunting — or rather hyping — his good works. So it has been with his charitable giving, which, for the better part of 30?years, he has regularly exaggerated to the point of plain mendacity.

That Mr. Trump in his public utterances is a serial embellisher is no surprise. Still, the shamelessness by which his actual giving to worthy causes has trailed his public claims of generosity is stunning. And given the relish with which he boasted of his giving, his campaign’s assertion that he has made private, quiet charitable gifts strains credulity.

A painstaking review by The Post’s David A. Fahrenthold, comparing Mr. Trump’s public statements with available records of his giving, found a pattern of exaggeration and unfulfilled pledges.

Speaking of his royalties from the reality television show “The Apprentice,” which had recently debuted in 2004, Mr. Trump told the radio personality Howard Stern that “I’m giving the money to charity,” mentioning that as the show’s host he had been paid “a lot more than” $1 million. The money, Mr. Trump said, would go to AIDS research and the Police Athletic League. Yet that year Mr. Trump’s foundation — the entity he established to bestow charitable gifts — gave just $1,000 for AIDS research and $106,000 to the Police Athletic League.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-trumps-fake-charity/2016/07/03/fbcd52e2-3e44-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html

July 4, 2016

Amazon Is Quietly Eliminating List Prices

In a major shift for online commerce, Amazon is quietly changing how it entices people to buy.

The retailer built a reputation and hit $100 billion in annual revenue by offering deals. The first thing a potential customer saw was a bargain: how much an item was reduced from its list price.

Now, in many cases, Amazon has dropped any mention of a list price. There is just one price. Take it or leave it.

The new approach comes as discounts both online and offline have become the subject of dozens of consumer lawsuits for being much less than they seem. It is also occurring while Amazon is in the middle of an ambitious multiyear shift from a store selling one product at a time to a full-fledged ecosystem. Amazon wants to be so deeply embedded in a customer’s life that buying happens as naturally as breathing, and nearly as often.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/amazon-is-quietly-eliminating-list-prices.html

July 2, 2016

In Venezuela, Political Prisoners as Pawns

Political arrests are a rare growth industry in Venezuela. When Nicolás Maduro became president after Hugo Chávez’s death from cancer in 2013, there were about a dozen prisoners of conscience, according to Foro Penal, a local nongovernmental organization. Today, the number hovers at around 100, and some 2,000 people are the subject of politically driven judicial prosecutions.

The government’s latest targets are Francisco Márquez and Gabriel San Miguel, two civil servants working in a mayor’s office who were summarily arrested at a highway checkpoint in a remote area of northern Venezuela on June 19. Along with hundreds of other activists, they were traveling that day to help collect signatures to petition for a referendum to remove Mr. Maduro from office.

The recall process, as this kind of referendum is known, is explicitly protected by Venezuela’s Constitution. The secretary general’s office of the Organization of American States, the archbishop of Caracas, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all denounced the arrest of Mr. Márquez and Mr. San Miguel as politically driven and violations of both international and Venezuelan law.

Once in custody, the two men were kept incommunicado and interrogated without counsel by the feared Cuban-trained secret police forces. They were charged with “inciting violence” and money laundering, crimes that can carry jail terms of more than 15 years. Instead of being kept in a special pre-trial holding facility, they were sent to one of the country’s notoriously dangerous penitentiaries, among convicted criminals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/opinion/in-venezuela-political-prisoners-as-pawns.html

July 1, 2016

Donald Trump could have wooed skeptical Republicans in Colorado. Instead, he brought up their fights

Donald Trump’s visit to Colorado on Friday offered the presumptive GOP nominee a chance to repair relations with Republicans in this pivotal swing state after a contentious primary season. But Trump instead dwelt on the divisions that threaten to split open the party.

In his address at the Western Conservative Summit, Trump repeatedly mentioned the fractious GOP primaries, particularly Colorado’s complicated delegate allocation process, in which the real estate mogul was outmaneuvered by GOP rival Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Polls came out and I was going to win Colorado, doing really well in Colorado. It looked good, and I was looking forward to it,” Trump recounted. “And then, all of a sudden, I didn’t get the delegates!”

Back in April, Trump slammed the process, and the fierce outcry he triggered culminated in state GOP Chairman Steve House receiving death threats.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-trump-colorado-conservaties-20160701-snap-story.html

July 1, 2016

Taiwan accidentally fires missile towards China, hitting trawler

Source: AFP

A Taiwanese warship mistakenly launched a supersonic "aircraft carrier killer" missile towards China on Friday, hitting a fishing boat and killing one person, the navy said, as ties between the island and its once bitter rival deteriorate.

The Hsiung-feng III (Brave Wind) missile flew about 75 kilometres (45 miles) before hitting the trawler in waters off Penghu, a Taiwanese-administered island group in the Taiwan Strait.

The skipper on the Taiwanese 60-tonne trawler was killed and three other crew on board, including a Vietnamese and a Filipino, were injured.

"An initial investigation showed that the incident has caused the death of the skipper," Taiwan's defence ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi told reporters.

Read more: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/taiwan-mistakenly-fires-carrier-killer-missile-towards-china-053704875.html

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Oops.

July 1, 2016

Venezuela first lady's nephews U.S. drug case gets new defendant

U.S. prosecutors have charged a new defendant accused of participating in a scheme with two nephews of Venezuela's first lady to transport a multi-hundred kilogram load of cocaine to the United States.

An indictment filed on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan accused Roberto De Jesus Soto Garcia of participating in meetings in Honduras and agreeing to facilitate the cocaine's arrival at a Honduran airport on its way to the United States.

The indictment said he agreed to participate in the drug venture with, among others, Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, who are both nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores.

The indictment charges Soto Garcia with conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. It was unclear if he had an attorney or was in custody, and contact information could not be immediately located.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-first-ladys-nephews-u-drug-case-gets-032238863.html

US prosecutors appear to be equal opportunity types.