China Slaps Ban on Internet News Reporting as Crackdown Tightens

Source: Bloomberg News

July 24, 2016 — 9:25 PM PDT

China’s top internet regulator ordered major online companies including Sina Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. to stop original news reporting, the latest effort by the government to tighten its grip over the country’s web and information industries.

The Cyberspace Administration of China imposed the ban on several major news portals, including Sohu.com Inc. and NetEase Inc., Chinese media reported in identically worded articles citing an unidentified official from the agency’s Beijing office. The companies have “seriously violated” internet regulations by carrying plenty of news content obtained through original reporting, causing “huge negative effects,” according to a report that appeared in The Paper on Sunday.

The agency instructed the operators of mobile and online news services to dismantle “current-affairs news” operations on Friday, after earlier calling a halt to such activity at Tencent, according to people familiar with the situation. Like its peers, Asia’s largest internet company had developed a news operation and grown its team. Henceforth, they and other services can only carry reports provided by government-controlled print or online media, the people said, asking not to be identified because the issue is politically sensitive.

The sweeping ban gives authorities near-absolute control over online news and political discourse, in keeping with a broader crackdown on information increasingly distributed over the web and mobile devices. President Xi Jinping has stressed that Chinese media must serve the interests of the ruling Communist Party.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-25/china-slaps-ban-on-internet-news-reporting-as-crackdown-tightens

Story or nonstory? SacBee: "Autism rates in California public schools jumped 7 percent in 2016"

SAC BEE, July 18, "Autism rates in California public schools jumped 7 percent in 2016"

[center]"The increase was especially sharp among kindergartners, where autism cases grew by 17% last year."[/center]

[/center]

http://www.latimes.com/newsletters/la-me-essential-california-20160719-snap-story.html

ESSENTIAL CALIFORNIA
By Alice Walton and Shelby Grad

Good morning. It is Tuesday, July 19. Police descended on a San Mateo neighborhood after receiving reports of a mountain lion in the area. Residents were told to shelter in place, but it was all for naught. The ferocious puma turned out to be a regular house cat. Here's what else is happening in the Golden State:

TOP STORIES

STORIES TO WATCH TODAY

L.A. AT LARGE

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

CRIME AND COURTS

EDUCATION

More cases: The number of children with autism in California’s public school systems has increased sevenfold since 2001. That’s about 97,000 students. Officials say the jump can be attributed to better screenings, a broader definition of the autism spectrum and more children being born with the condition. Sacramento Bee

SPOTLIGHT: Appropriate reporting or a failure of journalism? Scroll down, scroll way, way, way, way down.

MORE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028030727

I'm with THEM, basically, among many others I could name and you could continue to attempt to mock..

Here's the full text of the link you ignored. NOTE: Marc Edwards wrote intro for David Lewis' book.

Unconcerned? Seattle Children's Hospital: About 5% of children younger than 5 yrs old have epilepsy.

Another worrisome statistic posted at the Seattle Children's Hospital website:

http://www.seattlechildrens.org/medical-conditions/brain-nervous-system-mental-conditions/epilepsy/

Epilepsy in Children

Epilepsy happens more in children than it does in adults. It affects about 1% of the general population - one out of every 100 people. About 5% of children younger than 5 years old have epilepsy. That is about one in every 20 children under 5.

This number does not include children who have seizures caused by a high fever. These kinds of seizures are different from epilepsy. They are called febrile seizures. They either happen only once or only when your child has a fever.

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LINK: "Special Education - CalEdFacts" from CA Dept of Education website

Near Exide plant, dangerous lead levels in some yards are 100 times above health limits

Source: By Tony Barboza and Ben Poston, Los Angeles Times

July 20, 2016, 3:00 a.m.

Homes, schools and at least one day-care center near a shuttered Vernon battery recycler are contaminated with higher levels of brain-damaging lead than previously disclosed, with soil samples at some properties found to be so hazardous they are as much as 100 times above California’s health standard, state and county records show.

The public remains largely in the dark about where and at what concentrations the poisonous metal has been detected in neighborhoods near the Exide Technologies plant because state regulators have failed to release pollution readings for the vast majority of properties.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control says it has tested the soil of more than 2,400 homes. Despite repeated requests from The Times, the agency provided readings for just 269 properties.

A summary of results for 1,190 homes released Friday by the department was not broken down by property or location, but indicated thousands of soil samples were above state health standards and hundreds were at hazardous waste levels.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-dangerous-lead-levels-20160714-snap-story.html

"The increase was especially sharp among kindergartners, where autism cases grew by 17% last year."

Yesterday, Reverend Jesse Jackson urged President Obama to veto the GMO labeling bill.

Today Reverend Jesse Jackson urged President Obama to veto the GMO labeling bill that is currently before the House, should it reach his desk. In a letter sent directly to the president the renowned civil rights activist called attention to the “serious inequities (in the) GMO labeling legislation.” In the letter Jackson points out the discriminatory nature of such a labeling system; “100,000,000 Americans, most of them poor, people of color and elderly either do not own a smart phone or an iPhone to scan the QR code or live in an area of poor internet connectivity.”

LETTER: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/jesse-jackson-letter-to-obama_12626.pdf

Info from Center for Food Safety email.

Russian Billionaires in U.S. Health Push With D.C. Insiders

Source: Irina Reznik and Alex Sazonov, Washington Post

Jul 15, 2016, 7:06 am ET

(Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Fridman cashed out of his Russian oil venture near the top of the market and moved to London to build an empire in calmer climes. Then Brexit struck, reinforcing his determination to keep heading west.

With Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and sanctions over Ukraine muddying the investment waters from Moscow to Glasgow, Fridman and his three fellow Alfa Group billionaires are looking across the Atlantic and see a clear stream of profit in ever-higher spending on health care. With two Washington insiders in tow to help navigate the terrain, the Russians are preparing to invest as much as $3 billion in the industry over three years, starting in the U.S., where it accounts for almost a fifth of the economy.

“There are signals of a major tectonic shift in economic development happening before our eyes,” Fridman said in an interview in London.

Flush with almost $14 billion from the sale in 2013 of TNK-BP to state-owned Rosneft PJSC, Fridman and his partners created Luxembourg-based LetterOne to acquire western projects to balance their holdings back home. After buying North Sea energy assets, U.K. student housing and a slice of Uber Technologies Inc., they have about half left to deploy.

The skills and tactics that allowed Fridman to flourish in post-Soviet Russia won’t necessarily translate into success in the U.S., particularly with relations at a post-Cold War low. So he and his partners, who are both decried and admired for their mastery of what is known as administrative resources -- the aggressive use of connections, courts and cops to achieve commercial aims -- have brought on board people with ties to both major candidates for president.

Read more: http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-OA8XN66JIJUT01-4TSPURT7UORR6BQ31V7I6NQG0J