Asiana crash victim may have been run over by rescue vehicle -

Asiana crash victim may have been run over by rescue vehicle - 



A county coroner said Sunday that his office is conducting an autopsy to determine whether one of the victims of the Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco International Airport was run over and killed by an emergency vehicle.

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said senior San Francisco Fire Department officials notified him and his staff at the crash site Saturday that one of the two 16-year-old Chinese girls who died from the crash may have been struck on the runaway.

"We were made aware of the possibility at the scene that day," Foucrault said, adding that he did not get a thorough look at the victims on Saturday to know if they had external injuries.

Asiana flight flew too slow before crash
One of the bodies was found on the runway near where the plane's tail broke off upon impact, he said. The other was found on the left side of the aircraft about 30 feet away from where the Boeing 777 came to rest after it skidded down the tarmac and not far from an emergency slide.

'...it could have been one of our vehicles that added to the injuries...'
—San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White
San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press. Earlier Sunday, Hayes-White had said she did not know if the two dead girls were alive when her crews arrived on scene.

But she told the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday that the girl found on the side of the airplane had injuries consistent with having been run over.

"As it possibly could have happened, based on the injuries sustained, it could have been one of our vehicles that added to the injuries, or another vehicle," she told The Chronicle. "That could have been something that happened in the chaos. It will be part of our investigation."

Foucrault said the autopsy, which he expects to be completed by Monday, will involve determining whether the girl's death was caused by injuries from the crash or "a secondary incident."

The teenagers' families are expected to arrive in San Francisco on Monday, and they will receive the autopsy results before they are made public, he said.

Read more -

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/07/07/asiana-victim-rescue-vehicle.html

California considers condoms in prisons to cut STD rate... -

California considers condoms in prisons to cut STD rate... - 



California prisoners have unprotected sexual contact, forced or consensual, even if both are illegal, and this reality often leads to the spread of HIV and other diseases in prisons and in communities where felons are paroled.

Setting up a difficult conversation, one state lawmaker says it's time to give inmates a way to practice safe sex behind bars to reduce an infection rate that experts say is much higher than that of the general population.

The proposal from Oakland Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta comes despite a law prohibiting any sex between inmates, which creates a conflict that concerns both supporters and opponents of the legislation.

"It's a felony for prisoners to have sex while they're in prison, so I don't think it's good government for the state to encourage inmates to break the law," said Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue of Marysville.

Bonta's proposal would require the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to make condoms available in five prisons by 2015 and expand the program to each of the state's 33 adult prisons no later than 2020.

The bill, AB999, passed the Assembly and is awaiting consideration in the state Senate. If it becomes law, California would be the second state behind Vermont, which has a fraction of the inmate population, to provide condoms to all prisoners. Canada, most of the European Union, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa already take that step, according to legislative researchers.

Currently, condoms are contraband in California prisons, though the state has tried a distribution program before but on a temporary and limited basis.

Read more - 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_PRISONS_CONDOMS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-07-13-47-34

'Master key' to Android phones uncovered - could give cyber-thieves unfettered access -

'Master key' to Android phones uncovered - could give cyber-thieves unfettered access - 


A "master key" that could give cyber-thieves unfettered access to almost any Android phone has been discovered by security research firm BlueBox.

The bug could be exploited to let an attacker do what they want to a phone including stealing data, eavesdropping or using it to send junk messages.

The loophole has been present in every version of the Android operating system released since 2009.

Google said it currently had no comment to make on BlueBox's discovery.

Writing on the BlueBox blog, Jeff Forristal, said the implications of the discovery were "huge".

The bug emerges because of the way Android handles cryptographic verification of the programs installed on the phone.

Android uses the cryptographic signature as a way to check that an app or program is legitimate and to ensure it has not been tampered with. Mr Forristal and his colleagues have found a method of tricking the way Android checks these signatures so malicious changes to apps go unnoticed.

Any app or program written to exploit the bug would enjoy the same access to a phone that the legitimate version of that application enjoyed.

Read more -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23179522

19 Reasons To Be Deeply Concerned About The Global Economy As We Enter The 2nd Half Of 2013 -

19 Reasons To Be Deeply Concerned About The Global Economy As We Enter The 2nd Half Of 2013 - 



Is the global economic downturn going to accelerate as we roll into the second half of this year?  There is turmoil in the Middle East, we are seeing things happen in the bond markets that we have not seen happen in more than 30 years, and much of Europe has already plunged into a full-blown economic depression.  Sadly, most Americans will never understand what is happening until financial disaster strikes them personally.  As long as they can go to work during the day and eat frozen pizza and watch reality television at night, most of them will consider everything to be just fine.  Unfortunately, the truth is that everything is not fine.  The world is becoming increasingly unstable, we are living in the terminal phase of the greatest debt bubble in the history of the planet and the global financial system is even more vulnerable than it was back in 2008.  Unfortunately, most people seem to only have a 48 hour attention span at best these days.  They don't have the patience to watch long-term trends develop.  And the coming economic collapse is not going to happen all at once.  Rather, it is like watching a very, very slow-motion train wreck happen.  The coming economic nightmare is going to unfold over a number of years.  Yes, there will be moments of great panic, but mostly it will be a steady decline into economic oblivion.  And there are a lot of indications that the second half of this year is not going to be as good as the first half was.  The following are 19 reasons to be deeply concerned about the global economy as we head into the second half of 2013...

#1 The velocity of money in the United States has plunged to an all-time low.  It is extremely difficult to have an "economic recovery" if banks are not lending money and people are not spending it...



#2 The fall of the Egyptian government threatens to bring even more instability to the Middle East.  In response to the events in Egypt, the price of oil rose to more than 101 dollars a barrel on Wednesday.

#3 Every time the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has risen over $3.80 in the past three years, a stock market decline has always followed.

#4 As the world becomes increasingly unstable, massive citizen protest movements have been rising all over the globe...

The protests have many different origins. In Brazil people rose up against bus fares, in Turkey against a building project. Indonesians have rejected higher fuel prices, Bulgarians the government’s cronyism.

In the euro zone they march against austerity, and the Arab spring has become a perma-protest against pretty much everything. Each angry demonstration is angry in its own way.

#5 The European sovereign debt crisis is flaring up once again.  This time it is Portugal's turn to take center stage...

From Greece to Cyprus, Slovenia to Spain and Italy, and now most pressingly Portugal, where the finance and foreign ministers resigned in the space of two days, a host of problems is stirring after 10 months of relative calm imposed by the European Central Bank.

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho told the nation in an address late on Tuesday that he did not accept the foreign minister's resignation and would try to go on governing.

If his government does end up collapsing, as is now more likely, it will raise immediate questions about Lisbon's ability to meet the terms of the 78-billion-euro bailout it agreed with the EU and International Monetary Fund in 2011.

#6 It is being projected that Italy will need a major EU bailout within six months.

#7 Bond investors are starting to panic.  In fact, even prominent firms such as Pimco are seeing investors pull massive amounts of money out right now...

In June, investors pulled $9.6bn from Bill Gross’s flagship fund at Pimco, the largest single month of outflows at the fund since Morningstar records began in 1993, the investment research firm said.

The outflows came after investors pulled $1.3bn from the fund in May, which marked the first outflows since December 2011.

Overall, a whopping 80 billion dollars was pulled out of bond funds during June.

#8 Central banks are selling off staggering amounts of U.S. Treasury bonds right now.

#9 U.S. mortgage bonds just suffered their largest quarterly decline in nearly 20 years.

#10 We continue to buy far more from the rest of the world than they buy from us.  The U.S. trade deficit for the month of May was 45.0 billion dollars.

#11 The severe drought that the western half of the United States is suffering never seems to end.  What will it do to food prices if ranchers and farmers out west have to go through another summer like they did last year?

#12 European car sales have fallen to a 20 year low.

#13 Unemployment in the eurozone is at an all-time high.

#14 Could the paper gold Ponzi scheme be on the verge of crumbling?  There are reports that there is now a 100 day delay for gold owners to take physical delivery of their gold from some warehouses owned by the London Metal Exchange...

We’re told that bullion-buyers in London must now wait more than 100 days to take delivery of the bullion for which they have already paid.

The comedic drones at Bloomberg, and officials of the London Metal Exchange itself would have us believe this is due to “warehouse queues.” While precious metals bulls undoubtedly appreciate the imagery implied of a 100-day line-up of armored cars waiting to load their bullion – in the middle of this “bear market” – the implication is fallacious.

In an era of just-in-time inventories; the notion that there can be a 100-day backlog to load bullion into armored cars with the metal already sitting in the warehouse is ludicrous. Clearly what the LME is really reporting here is a greater-than-three-month delay to refine the gold (or silver) being purchased here – and then ship it to their warehouse.

In other words, the “bullion” which traders believe they are purchasing today is in fact merely ore which hasn’t even been dug out of the ground yet.

#15 The number of mortgage applications in the United States is falling at the fastest rate in more than 3 years.

#16 Real disposable income in the United States is falling at the fastest rate in more than 4 years.

#17 The percentage of companies issuing negative earnings guidance for this quarter is at a level that we have never seen before.

#18 Is the dark side of derivatives trading about to be exposed?  EU officials claim that 13 major international banks have been colluding to control the trading of derivatives...

The European Commission says many of the world's largest investment banks appear to have colluded to block attempts by exchanges to trade and offer more transparent prices for financial products known as credit derivatives.

The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said Monday it has informed 13 banks — including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley — as well as the industry association for derivatives itself, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, ISDA, of the preliminary conclusions of an investigation that began in March.

#19 There are 441 trillion dollars of interest rate derivatives sitting out there and interest rates have risen rapidly over the past few weeks.  What is going to happen to those derivatives if interest rates keep going higher?

So what do you think?

Are there any items that are missing that you would add to this list?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below...

Read more - 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/19-reasons-to-be-deeply-concerned-about-the-global-economy-as-we-enter-the-2nd-half-of-2013

Xbox One to feature biometric targeted advertisements -

Xbox One to feature biometric targeted advertisements - 



Now that both Microsoft and Sony have announced new platform offerings, details are starting to slowly emerge, and biometrics have come up in conversations more than once –most recently, in regards to the Xbox One and its use of facial recognition ad-targeting.

According to an interview in SickTwiddlers, through the system’s Kinect camera, ads can be targeted based on who is seen sitting in front of the console and is something the company has considered very seriously.  Dashboard advertisements are a core part of the Xbox experience.

Though the company says it receives minimal data through its Kinect camera, ads can be targeted based on age, gender and other demographics. According to an Xbox LIVE Advertising Developer quoted in the SickTwiddlers interview, the company doesn’t receive much biometric information collected by the Kinect, in order to preserve user privacy.

Read more -

http://www.biometricupdate.com/201307/xbox-one-to-feature-biometric-targeted-advertisements/

St Louis Prison guards 'forced inmates to have gladiator-style fights with other prisoners for entertainment' -

St Louis Prison guards 'forced inmates to have gladiator-style fights with other prisoners for entertainment' - 



Inmates in St Louis have revealed that they were forced to fight each other in order to entertain prison guards.
Now thirty inmates want to join the existing group of eight who have filed a federal lawsuit against the prison guards at the Medium Security Institution on Hall Street as they claim they were baited into fighting one another for their keeper's amusement.
Five guards were named in the suit and they were said to be the ones who forced inmates to fight in 'gladiator-style combat'.

The Fox 2 News reports that the lawsuit came out of a city investigation into inmate abuse.

One victim: Former inmate Derrick Rodgers is one of the growing group of convicted criminals who is now suing the city for $150million

In one instance, an unidentified inmate was seen leaving another prisoner's cell with his clothes completely shredded and in tatters.
'Individuals who were put in solitary confinement were not supposed to have contact with any other inmate but what was happening was the guards were actually taking inmates out of the cells, placing them in cells with other inmates, and forcing them to fight each other,' attorney Daniel Brown told CBS St. Louis.
The civil rights lawsuit against the city  was filed last year asking for $150million in punitive damages based on the claims of eight men who either have been released from the Medium Security Institution- known as 'the Workhouse'- or who are still serving out their sentences.
The list has grown dramatically, however, but the city does not feel it adds any weight to the claims.
'From when he first got in there he was telling me he was doing fights and stuff like that,' LaDonna Pitchfort, whose son Frankie Edwards is serving a sentence in the prison.
The suit names two former guards- Dexter Brinson and Elvis Howard- who have since been suspended, and the other three guards are only identified by their last names as the inmates do not know their first names.
That has not deterred Mr Brown and his clients, who feel they have evidence on their side.
'We know that that is not true of course because we got the video and at the end of the day, once jurors see that video, I think they’ll be with us,' Mr Brown told CBS.


Read more: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2353589/Inmates-forced-gladiator-style-fights-prisoners-entertain-guards.html

The United States Department of State spent $630G to boost Facebook 'likes' -

The United States Department of State spent $630G to boost Facebook 'likes' - 



The State Department spent more than $630,000 on advertising campaigns to boost the number of Facebook "likes" for the agency's pages on the website, according to a report released by the agency's inspector general.
Between 2011 and March 2013, the agency's Bureau of International Information Programs used the funds on advertising to increase the number of fans for each of its four Facebook pages from 100,000 to more than 2 million, according to the May report.
The program was initiated after the bureau expanded the agency's presence on social media by setting up Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and blogs targeted at foreign audiences, the report states.
The report found that many employees in the bureau were critical of the advertising campaigns and felt that the agency was "buying fans" who may have once clicked on an ad but have never engaged further.
Defenders of the initiative argued that advertising was needed to increase visibility because of the difficulty of finding a Facebook page using the website's general search tool, according to the report.
The inspector general's report recommends that the State Department bureau reduce spending by focusing its advertising on specific public diplomacy goals and not on raising the number of Facebook "likes" on the agency's pages.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at Wednesday's daily press briefing with reporters that the agency currently spends $36,000 a year on the Facebook outreach program.
Psaki said the initiative continues to target "a broad range" of people "living internationally" and that the bureau behind the program is working to implement inspector general’s recommendations.
"We take the valuable feedback of the [Office of Inspector General] seriously, and we’re committed to addressing the recommendations and the concerned outline – concerns outlined in this assessment," Psaki told reporters.


Read more: -

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/04/state-department-spent-630k-on-facebook-likes-report-says/

Scientists create human liver from stem cells -

Scientists create human liver from stem cells - 



Scientists have for the first time created a functional human liver from stem cells derived from skin and blood and say their success points to a future where much-needed livers and other transplant organs could be made in a laboratory.

While it may take another 10 years before lab-grown livers could be used to treat patients, the Japanese scientists say they now have important proof of concept that paves the way for more ambitious organ-growing experiments.

“The promise of an off-the-shelf liver seems much closer than one could hope even a year ago,” said Dusko Illic, a stem cell expert at King’s College London who was not directly involved in the research but praised its success.

Read more -

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/07/03/scientists-create-human-liver-from-stem-cells/

Food trucks for Dogs are rolling through cities, selling canine versions of cookies, ice cream and other treats -

Food trucks for Dogs are rolling through cities, selling canine versions of cookies, ice cream and other treats - 



In hindsight, the collision of the food truck craze with the tendency to spoil our four-legged friends was inevitable.

Food trucks for dogs are rolling through a growing number of cities, selling canine versions of cookies, ice cream and other treats. Paying $3 for doggie ice cream (dogs can have trouble digesting the real thing) might seem like a silly indulgence, but owners of these food trucks say they're hardly begging for business.

"This year is turning out to be really good because a lot of people are hearing about me," said Angela Meyers of Elizabeth, N.J., who launched The Frosty Pooch last July. Meyers, who brings her truck to parks, farmers' markets and dog parks in the New York City area, makes small-batch, dog-friendly ice cream in six flavors that sell for $2 a cup and "pupsicles" for $2.50. Her four-legged customers' favorite flavor is the bacon peanut butter, she said.

"I'm getting a lot of return customers," she said.

At Sit 'N Stay Pet Cafe in Orlando, Fla., treats range from $2 to $7. Owner Lauren Hicks, who launched the business in 2011, said she started turning a profit after about a year. "We've got awesome feedback from our customers," she said via email.

Some owners of doggie food trucks are seeing business grow so fast they plan to franchise. In Chicago, Donna Santucci opened Fido To Go to complement her existing pet-grooming business in 2011. "I have over 40 applicants" who want to license the brand, she said.

Right now, Santucci makes all the cookies and frozen yogurt cups she sells from scratch in a commercial kitchen in downtown Chicago. "I'm looking for a bigger facility now as we speak."

In Austin, Bow-Wow Chow has been selling ice cream and local, handmade dog treats for $1 to $5 at dog parks and events for only about a year, but founder and CEO Lara Enzor said she gets multiple licensing requests on a weekly basis.

"I've been surprised at how quickly we've actually been able to start making money. ... We're doing really well," she said. "We're selling so much ice cream now it's crazy. We could easily sell 100 in a day." A week ago, a nursing home booked the Bow-Wow Chow truck for a "retirement party" for one of its roughly 20 therapy dogs that retired at age 15.

Read more - 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100835040

Bebo founders buy back worthless social network for $1 M after selling it to AOL for $850 M just five years ago -

Bebo founders buy back worthless social network for $1 M after selling it to AOL for $850 M just five years ago - 



The founders of Bebo have bought back the worthless social network for $1 million after selling it to AOL for $850 million just five years ago then watching it die.
Husband-and-wife team Michael and Xochi Birch netted some $600 million from the sale but the business crumbled shortly after the acquisition thanks to AOL's mismanagement and the rise of Facebook.
But the minted British tech wiz tweeted today that he and his equally brainy spouse had snapped up the company they made a killing from for a song - 1/850th of the sale price - and did it all for 'fun.'

'We just bought Bebo back for $1m. Can we actually re-invent it? Who knows, but it'll be fun trying..' he wrote.

Bebo, which stands for 'Blog Early, Blog Often,' was founded in 2005 and in its hey day had some 40 million users around the world.
AOL paid the exorbitant sum boasting that the purchase was a 'game-changing' step that would put it 'squarely in a leading position in social media.'


Read more: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2353177/Michael-Birch-purchase-Bebo-founders-buy-worthless-social-network-1million-selling-AOL-850million-just-years-ago.html