HAB911
HAB911's JournalWhite House staff members are using a 'secure' app that's really not so secure
A number of senior White House officials, including press secretary Sean Spicer, have at one point downloaded the Confide messaging app that touts "military-grade encryption," allowing users to secretly and securely message one another. But it may be a great deal less secure than they think.
Cybersecurity experts warn that the Confide app, which boasts a feature that deletes messages as soon as they are read, is rife with security concerns. It also raises questions about whether senior members of the White House should be using an app that purposely deletes their conversations, potentially flouting rules requiring that they keep an accurate record of communications within the White House. The use of the app by government officials was first reported by Axios.
BuzzFeed News found the phone numbers of Spicer, along with Hope Hicks, the director of strategic communications, via a feature that allows users to see friends who have already joined.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/17/white-house-staff-members-are-using-a-secure-app-thats-really-not-so-secure.html
Backyard Worlds: Planet 9
We need your help searching for new objects at the edges of our solar system. In this project, we'll ask you to help us distinguish real celestial objects from image artifacts in data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. The real objects are brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, the Sun's nearest neighbors. You may find an object closer than Proxima Centauri (the closest star to the Sun) or even discover the Sun's hypothesized ninth planet, which models suggest might appear in these images.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/marckuchner/backyard-worlds-planet-9/about/research
Florida Gun Gag Law Overturned
Court Overturns Florida Measure Preventing Doctors From Asking About Gun Ownership
A federal appellate court Thursday struck down a Florida law that prohibits doctors from asking patients about firearms ownership, saying the so-called gun gag law violates doctors’ free speech rights.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an en banc ruling in Miami, said the anti-harassment provision of the Firearm Owners Privacy Act is unconstitutional.
The judges, however, upheld the law’s anti-discrimination provision, which prevents a doctor from refusing to treat a patient who owns a gun.
http://www.ibtimes.com/what-gun-gag-law-court-overturns-florida-measure-preventing-doctors-asking-about-gun-2493519
Trump Immigration ICE Raids: Mass Deportations Have Begun, Congressman Says
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro accused President Trump on Thursday of putting a mass deportation program into place, saying it goes beyond anything orchestrated by prior administrations.
In a flurry of tweets, Castro said it’s “hard not to conclude” that mass deportations have begun following a meeting he attended with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He said ICE officials made it clear only Dreamers — undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order — without any offenses “including traffic tickets” or perceived gang affiliations would be exempt. He said the only thing that will limit the program is the size of ICE’s budget.
http://www.ibtimes.com/trump-immigration-ice-raids-mass-deportations-have-begun-congressman-says-2493528
Can Woolly Mammoths Be Brought Back To Life?
Scientists claim that they may be close to resurrecting traits of a creature that vanished from the planet thousands of years ago, reports say.
snip
Church and his teammates are attempting to create a “mammophant,” which would be an elephant with mammoth-like features — for example, small ears, subcutaneous fat, long shaggy hair and cold-adapted blood — using the powerful gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9.
http://www.ibtimes.com/can-woolly-mammoths-be-brought-back-life-scientist-says-hybrid-mammoth-elephant-2493647
Top Ben Carson Aide Fired For Once Criticizing Donald Trump in Op-Ed
A top official in the Housing and Urban Development Department was pushed out because he once wrote an anti-Donald Trump op-ed for The Hill during the 2016 election.
“Shermichael Singleton, who was one of the few black conservatives in the Trump administration, had been working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development since Jan. 23 as a senior adviser,” reports The New York Times. “He was preparing a cross-country tour for [Ben Carson], who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate this month.”
But the “background check” of Singleton pulled up his October opinion piece. “A Republican asks: Aren’t we morally obliged to stand up to Trump?” he wrote.
“My party in particular has allowed itself to be taken over by someone who claims to be a Republican but doesn’t represent any of our values, principles or traditions.We allowed that hostile takeover to happen on our watch,” he wrote. “This individual recognized a moment of great disparity in the Republican base and, like cancer, attacked and spread, consuming everything in his path.”
http://www.mediaite.com/print/top-ben-carson-aide-fired-for-once-criticizing-donald-trump-in-op-ed/
How Florida's third-largest political party just ceased to exist
The party's over. No, really.
The third-largest political party in Florida ceased to exist this week. It was wiped out not by infighting or ideology but by a technicality that may or may not exist.
If that sounds odd, that's par for the course: The Independent Party of Florida has always been slightly off kilter. Not in its views — which are quite moderate — but in its influence.
The party boasted more than 250,000 voters in Florida, which made it 10 times the size of the Libertarian Party and almost 50 times as large as the Green Party.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/romano-how-floridas-third-largest-political-party-just-ceased-to-exist/2313348
Trump will announce Alexander Acosta as Labor secretary pick, NBC News confirms
Source: CNBC
President Donald Trump will announce Alexander Acosta as his new Labor Secretary choice on Thursday afternoon, NBC News confirmed.
Trump is set to announce the pick at a Thursday afternoon press conference.
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/16/trump-says-he-will-announce-new-secretary-of-labor-in-noon-press-conference.html
So what's wrong with Alexander Acosta
new pick for for Labor Secretary?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Alexander_Acosta
The Director of 'Hidden Figures' on How His Movie Changed Him Forever
Sometimes you do save the best for last, and in the case of Hidden Figures, the final day’s shoot came with a wallop.
Playing a Black mathematician at NASA in the early 1960s, Taraji P. Henson scrambles into the office, disheveled and dripping rain, only to be chastised by her boss (Kevin Costner) for the length of her absence. Henson starts off cool, explaining that every time she has to use the restroom, she must run half a mile to the “colored” bathrooms. “Did you know that?” she asks. It’s here that her voice blooms into a beautiful, calibrated rage, each syllable unloading a year of mistreatment. “I work like a dog day and night. Living off the coffee from a pot that none of you want to touch,” she screams. The character regains her composure, though the room, filled with dozens of white men, stills with shock. Cut!
Which is when everyone on set burst into applause.
http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/the-director-of-hidden-figures-on-how-his-movie-changed-him-forever/75625?utm_source=dd&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=02152017&variable=9d91d2d18ffb4c5a3c26fdf0d50dd20e
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Gender: MaleHometown: Atlanta, Gerogia
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Current location: Tampa, Florida
Member since: Wed Sep 7, 2016, 06:45 AM
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