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Friday, September 21, 2007

In Boston, Massachusetts a 19-year-old woman with an LED device attached to her clothing was arrested at Logan International Airport, Terminal-C by the Massachusetts State Police. Massport spokeswoman Lisa Langone described the device as a fake bomb strapped to her chest. The woman was identified as Star Simpson, a second year student from Hawaii attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Simpson was asking for information on her boyfriend’s arriving flight from Oakland at an information desk when the police were notified.

Police say that the device was made from a computer circuit board (in fact a white breadboard as used in MIT course 6.002 (Circuits and Electronics) laboratory kits), LED lights forming a “star” shape, and wiring. The wiring was connected to a 9V battery, allowing the device to light up. According to Maj. Scott Pare of the Massachusetts State Police, Simpson stated that she had created the device as a piece of art that she created to stand out at a career fair. It was attached to the front of a black sweatshirt with a hood that Simpson was wearing, the sweatshirt had “Socket to me, Course VI” written on the back. She was holding Play-doh. She was arrested at about 8:00 a.m. Police say that the device was part of “art” and that Simpson is cooperating with the investigation.

“This is a serious event and was handled quickly and safely. She claims this was art and just wanted to display the art. She didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation and she is lucky we did not use deadly force because we had machine guns on scene,” said authorities during a press conference at 11:00 a.m. today.

“She’s extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used. And she’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue,” said Pare.

Pare later said that, “[Simpson] did seem a bit upset that she was in custody. However, she was rational, and she did answer all questions as required.”

Simpson reportedly arrived to at the airport via the subway. She was wearing the device during her trip on the subway, and had in fact been wearing the device during an MIT job fair the previous day.

Simpson was arraigned today on charges including disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Wayne Margolis requested a $5,000 cash bail, stating that Simpson had shown “a total disregard to understand the context of the situation…an airport post-9/11.” Ross Schreiber, Simpson’s defense attorney, called the amount “completely unreasonable” on the grounds that she had not pretended the circuit was anything else and that she was a student in good standing at MIT. Simpson pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on $750 bond.

Fellow MIT classmates reportedly describe Simpson as “impulsive” and “creative.”

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The United States Senate has approved a hard-fought measure to overhaul the health care system. The vote will be followed by the difficult process of reconciling the Senate-passed bill with one approved by the House of Representatives, in order to get a final measure to President Barack Obama.

“The yeas are 60, the nays are 39. H.R. 3590 as amended, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is passed,” Vice President Joe Biden announced. Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky did not show up for the vote leading to the 39 nays. Mike Reynard, a spokesman for Bunning, said in an e-mail that “The senator had family commitments.”

The vice president presided over the Senate at the time of the vote in his role as President of the United States Senate.

As expected, Republicans voted against the bill while all Democrats and two Independents, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted for it.

At an estimated $87 billion, the measure would expand health insurance coverage to about 30 million more Americans currently without it, and create new private insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, to expand choice.

And, like the slightly more expensive measure passed by the House of Representatives, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, it would end a practice by private insurance companies of denying coverage to individuals with existing health problems.

Both the Senate and House measures would require nearly all Americans to purchase some form of insurance, while lower-income Americans would receive help from federal government subsidies.

In remarks before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, said opponents had done everything they could to prevent the vote from taking place.

Speaking to reporters, Reid and others hailed the vote as a victory and a major step toward providing millions more Americans with access to health care. “This is a victory because we have affirmed that the ability to live a healthy life in our great country is a right and not merely a privilege for the select few,” Reid said.

Reid and others including Robert Byrd, the 92-year-old Democrat from West Virginia, paid tribute to Senator Edward Kennedy, who died this past August after spending decades of his career in the Senate pursuing health care reform.

When casting his vote Byrd said, “Mr. President, this is for my friend Ted Kennedy. Aye.”

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Kennedy, watched the proceedings from the Senate visitor’s gallery, as did Representative John Dingell, Democrat from Michigan, who has been a long time advocate of health care reform and who sponsored and introduced the House version of the health care reform bill.

In the final hours of debate on the Senate bill, Republicans asserted it would be ineffective and add sharply to the U.S. budget deficit.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama said of the bill, “This legislation may have a great vision, it may have a great idea about trying to make the system work better. But it does not. These are huge costs [and] it’s not financially sound.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to defeat the bill when the Senate reconvenes in January saying, “This fight is not over. This fight is long from over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law.”

Senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine who helped approved the Senate Finance Committee’s version of health care reform, the America’s Healthy Future Act, earlier in the year and who remarked she may not vote on the final bill, said, “I was extremely disappointed,” noting that when the Democrats reached their needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, “there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle.”

Ahead are difficult negotiations with the House of Representatives to craft a final bill President Obama would sign into law. These talks, which will formally get under way early in the new year, will take place amid anger among many liberal House Democrats the Senate bill failed to contain a government-run public health insurance option.

Members of the House Progressive Caucus have vowed to fight to keep this public option in any final legislation that emerges, along with other provisions they say are needed to protect lower and middle-income Americans and hold insurance companies accountable.

In a statement, the Democratic chairmen of three key House committees said while there are clear differences between House and Senate bills, both will bring fundamental health care coverage to millions who are currently uninsured.

Obama administration officials have been quoted as saying they anticipate negotiations on a final bill would not be complete until after the President’s State of the Union Address in January, and could slip even later into the new year.

President Obama issued a statement to the press in the State Dining Room in the White House saying that the vote is “legislation that brings us toward the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America’s health care system.”

He also pointed out the bill’s strengths, noting, “The reform bill that passed the Senate this morning, like the House bill, includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition. They will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get sick. No longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for the treatments you need. And you’ll be able to appeal unfair decisions by insurance companies to an independent party.”

He also noted how historic the bill is, saying, “If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.”

Obama noted the potential social impact, saying, “It’s the impact reform will have on Americans who no longer have to go without a checkup or prescriptions that they need because they can’t afford them; on families who no longer have to worry that a single illness will send them into financial ruin; and on businesses that will no longer face exorbitant insurance rates that hamper their competitiveness.”

Obama afterwards made phone calls to various Senators and other people, including Victoria Kennedy and David Turner of Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Turner had his health insurance rescinded in January of last year, after his insurance company went back into his record and alleged that he failed to disclose his full medical record at the time he applied for coverage. Turner was First Lady Michelle Obama’s guest during her husband’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care reform back in September.

Monday, January 23, 2006

In the town of Weare, New Hampshire, a movement is under way to force Supreme Court Justice David Souter to sell his home for “public benefit,” an expansion of the eminent domain provision in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution that the Supreme Court legalized in the controversial 5–4 decision in Kelo v. New London where Souter was on the majority side. In the June 2005 decision this majority ruled that “public use” included “public benefit,” stating that a local council could use the Fifth Amendment to compulsorily acquire private property for the express purpose of selling it to other private parties whose use was expected to yield increased tax revenues. The decision left many worried that homes would be seized for commercial enterprises or that the decision could be used as a means to remove minority property owners deemed inconvenient.

The campaign to have Souter’s house removed is headed by Logan Clements, who is petitioning to replace it with the Lost Liberty Hotel, a tongue-in-cheek name for what he says will be a memorial to lost freedom. Clements already has 188 signatures to put the issue on a ballot, and only 25 are needed. Once it is on the ballot, the measure can be approved as soon as March. Weare has 8,500 residents.

So far, neither Justice Souter nor Kathy Arberg, Supreme Court spokeswoman, have commented on the matter.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

82-year-old Jewish Bowmanville, Ontario woman Ms. Marion Schwarz’s house has been found vandalized with graffiti showing neo-Nazism expressions, as well as swastikas. Broken windows and walls were found ripped open.

The terms “Kike”, “Fuck Jews,” and “White Power” were written in white around the house, as well as a large green swastika.

The woman’s husband Mr. Allan Schwarz, was returning home to their house on King Street East, the town’s center, to bring home a present for their 40th wedding anniversary when he found the house not the way he left it.

Bought to start an antique store, the Schwarz’s started a cattle business instead and later rented it out. Ten years ago their tenant started to rent the house, just five months ago he stopped paying rent saying he was on welfare. Ms. Schwarz offered to lower his rent. He vandalized and fled, with his son and daughter, from the house on Tuesday morning, the day he was to be evicted. She was accompanied by her son Alan, two police officers, and a locksmith.

“I don’t know what happened to him … Up until the last while, I never had a day’s trouble with him. He was friendly,” Ms. Schwarz said.

Durham Regional Police are now investigating what they refer to as an “incident”, and what lobby group B’nai Brith Canada has argued constitutes a “hate crime”.

“A swastika on its own, as per the Criminal Code of Canada, is not a hate crime,” said Sgt. Paul McCurbin. “It doesn’t have the proper components to be considered a hate crime. For example, if I said that I was going to kill a race of people or we should kill a race of people, that would be considered a hate crime.”

A local neighbor, who asked not to be named, swept glass from the broken windows off the sidewalk, worried that dogs could cut their feet. She said the tenants were private people.

A Prisoner of War (POW) camp was located in Bowmanville during World War II (WWII). [1] [2] Named Camp 30 it held captive German army officers from the Afrika Korps, fliers from the Luftwaffe and naval officers from the Kriegsmarine. Many of them were transferred from England. Among them was famous top U-boat ace of World War II Otto Kretschmer. He was involved in the Battle of Bowmanville.

The Bowmanville boys’ school was the building holding the prisoners. The facility had been designed to house 300 boys. Surrounding the existing school buildings was a barbed wire fence. It was not the typical POW camp, having good food and prisoners being well treated. It had gardens and even a swimming pool was built. Movies were shown each week, music concerts were held, and stage plays were produced.

Mr. Schwarz fled from Germany to Canada in 1938. Marion, a Toronto native, and her husband moved to Bowmanville to start a new life.

“In 1938, we found safe haven in Bowmanville,” said her son Alan. “It was wonderful place to settle and my parents have been here basically for 70 years. They never anticipated ever facing the same kind of symbolism they had to leave Germany for.”

The investigation still continues. The tenant’s name has not been released.

“We couldn’t foresee anything like this because human beings don’t do things like this.”

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a new crime-fighting agency to deal with “brutal and sophisticated” crimes by organised gangs. The agency’s mandate and powers have been compared to that of the United States’ FBI.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), has approximately 4,200 “law enforcement officers”, some of whom are ex-spies, and will use their £400m annual budget to fight counterfeiting, fraud, drug and people-trafficking.

The agency was created out of the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and investigative staff from the Immigration Service. SOCA is chaired by ex-MI5 chief Sir Stephen Lander.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The United Nations is reportedly beginning an investigation into claims that Pfc. Bradley Manning is being “tortured.” Manning was arrested in May, after allegedly leaking over 250,000 classified diplomatic cables to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Last week, it was announced that supporters for Manning lodged a complaint with the Office of The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, saying that the conditions of his cell and the treatment he is receiving, amount to “torture.” According to Salon, Manning is not allowed to exercise, is denied bed sheets and pillows, and has been held in solitary confinement for 23 hours of every day since his arrest. According to Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, a former United States Army major, and veteran of the Iraq War, Manning is only allowed to walk in a small room for exercise.

“[Manning is] taken to an empty room and only allowed to walk, normally just walks figure eights in the room. If he indicates that he no long feels like walking, he is immediately returned to his cell,” stated Coombs to Salon.

The Pentagon denies that Manning is being tortured, saying he is being treated “fairly. We’ve been reviewed … No concerns have been voiced from a (Department of Defense) perspective.”

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, this morning “unreservedly” apologised to clients who lost money in a scandal involving the bank’s financial planning services arm.

Last week, a Senate enquiry found financial advisers from the Commonwealth Bank had made high-risk investments of clients’ money without the clients’ permission, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The Senate enquiry called for a Royal Commission into the bank, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Mr Narev stated the bank’s performance in providing financial advice was “unacceptable”, and the bank was launching a scheme to compensate clients who lost money due to the planners’ actions.

In a statement Mr Narev said, “Poor advice provided by some of our advisers between 2003 and 2012 caused financial loss and distress and I am truly sorry for that. […] There have been changes in management, structure and culture. We have also invested in new systems, implemented new processes, enhanced adviser supervision and improved training.”

An investigation by Fairfax Media instigated the Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning division and ASIC.

Whistleblower Jeff Morris, who reported the misconduct of the bank to ASIC six years ago, said in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald that neither the bank nor ASIC should be in control of the compensation program.