Emergency crews were treating at least 10 people due to a suspicious package found at the IRS building near downtown Kansas City, Missouri on Friday morning.
Several emergency crews were on scene across from Union Station along Pershing Road. HAZMAT teams were evacuating potions of the building.
Crews said the 10 people affected were vomiting.
There was no immediate information from officials on the circumstances surrounding the package, but officials confirmed there was no powder involved. A box of honesty & ethics?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2017 12:43 ||
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#1
Frank, you beat me to it.
If it had been DC instead of KC the death toll would have been in the thousands.
[AP] BALTIMORE (AP) -- Last week, the number of homicides in Baltimore surpassed 200, making 2017 a record-setting year for violence on the city’s streets.
As the body count rises, the police department has reassigned 150 officers to the city’s most dangerous areas, but is still struggling to curb the bloodshed amid internal turmoil and mounting criticism. Mayor Catherine Pugh said she’s developed a plan to stop the violence, but hasn’t yet made it public.
In the meantime, Baltimore residents are taking matters into their own hands, proposing a 72-hour cease fire that would go into effect Friday and last at least through Sunday.
"Nobody Kill Anybody"
Erricka Bridgeford, a professional conflict mediator in Baltimore, is one of the organizers of the cease-fire, whose motto is "Nobody Kill Anybody."
Bridgeford says no individual or organization alone has taken credit for the event, and that’s intentional: That way, she said, it belongs to every single Baltimore resident.
The idea is to persuade shooters to put down their guns for three whole days, and remember what it feels like to make a positive decision for themselves, and for their city.
#6
Is Baltimore going to promote tourism by putting up billboards that say: "Safer than 2% of U.S. Cities?" Or "Come visit Baltimore and the inner harbor during the 3-day cease-fire."
[APNEWS] The actor who played Luke Duke on the 1980s television show "The Dukes of Hazzard" pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." on Thursday to grabbing the buttocks of a female member of the cast of a musical he was supposed to appear in.
Tom Wopat was released on $1,000 bail and was told to stay away from the woman after denying indecent assault and battery and drug possession charges. He refused to comment outside court before driving away.
Wopat, who’s from New York, inappropriately touched the woman on July 23, prosecutors alleged.
"During a rehearsal the defendant allegedly walked behind a female cast member, grabbing her buttocks," they said in an emailed statement.
Wopat, 65, was incarcerated Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! on Wednesday night on a warrant on the indecent assault charge as he was leaving Waltham High School, where he was rehearsing for a performance of "42nd Street." Police said that during a search of him and his vehicle they found "two bags of white powder believed to be cocaine."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#2
Mexican architects from Estudio 3.14, a design firm based in Guadalajara, imagined a hot pink border that stretches 1,954 miles, called the "Prison-Wall."
Pink? What are the Mexicans trying to do, get even?
[DAWN] Zookeepers never expected a 23-year-old giant panda to give birth again when she was moved to a nature reserve in southwest China to live out the rest of her days.
But Haizi, started showing interest in courtship this spring, resulting in a blind date with a male panda suitor. Four months later twin cubs, that have made her the world's oldest panda mom, China's Giant Panda Conservation and Research Center announced on Thursday.
A 23-year-old giant panda is equivalent in age to an 80-year-old human.
According to the centre, Haizi gave birth to a 175-gram (6 ounces) female and a 123.1-gram male on July 30 at southwest Sichuan province's Wolong National Nature Reserve, where 21 panda cubs have been born this year. Haizi last delivered a pair of panda twins when she was 19 years old.
"Generally, the maximum breeding age for giant pandas is 20 years old, and pandas older than that are not encouraged to participate in breeding," Li Desheng, a giant panda expert at the breeding centre, said in a statement.
"But Haizi's success demonstrates the advanced degree of care offered at our centre. It is a breakthrough in panda breeding. "
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[APNEWS] A fire broke out after midnight Friday in one of the world’s tallest residential towers in Dubai, engulfing part of the skyscraper and sending chunks of debris plummeting below. Flaming skyscrapers appear to afflict the Doobabs of Dubai with some regularity.
Firefighters are working to bring the blaze under control and no injuries have been reported so far at the Torch Tower, located in the popular Marina neighborhood.
"Dubai Civil Defense has successfully evacuated the Torch Tower and is working to bring the fire under control," Dubai’s official media office said in a tweet.
It is the second major fire to engulf the 86-story Torch Tower, which caught fire in early 2015. There were no major casualties reported in that blaze.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named journalist near the scene of early Friday’s blaze said more than 40 floors of the high-rise tower appeared to be engulfed in flames on one side of the building. Residents of the building could be seen crying with several saying the fire broke just after 1 a.m.
Dubai police cordoned off the area around the building, keeping people about a block away from the fire and the falling debris.
Fires have affected several skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, including a towering inferno that engulfed a 63-story luxury hotel in Dubai on New Year’s Eve in 2016.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Owners were having trouble finding tenants and wanted to 'sell' the place to their insurance company?
[Dhaka Tribune] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... is known for its extremely conservative outlook and laws towards women and women’s dress, but it seems there might soon be some respite.
Going by recent reports, the country’s new heir to the throne Prince Mohammed bin Salman has announced plans of opening a new luxury Red Sea resort on a stretch of Saudi Arabia’s northwest coastline, where women will be allowed to wear whatever they like.
The resort, which will be a kind of "semi-autonomous" destination, will relax the strict norms of women’s dressing, so they can finally wear a bikini to the beach, if that’s what they want.
A Telegraph report quoted the government saying that the resort will be "governed by laws on par with international standards". This is said to be in a bid to turn the country into a tourist hub, akin to Dubai, where women are allowed to wear bikinis on the beach, making it a preferred Middle Eastern destination for international travellers.
The Prince is reportedly hopes that once business picks up, tourism would lessen the dependence on oil in the economy.
Tourists would also not need a visa to travel to the destination, and the resort will offer activities such as parachuting, trekking and rock climbing.
The Sun reports that the Red Sea project will also include diving attractions and a nature reserve, with some areas resembling the luxury hotels, islands and lagoons of the Maldives. This is aside from the usual fare of offerings for luxury travellers, such as wellness spas, alongside the options to spot rare wildlife such as Arabian leopards and falcons at a nature reserve.
There is also the Unesco World Heritage site of the ancient ruins of Mada’in Saleh.
A statement reportedly said that construction is scheduled to start in 2019, the first phase is expected to be completed by 2022. It hopes to host a million visitors annually by 2035.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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#3
I'm not optimistic, recently, a Saudi woman was arrested after wearing miniskirt in video. The bikini beach will probably mean the burkas go down to the knee instead of the ankle.
[DAWN] Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has scrapped parliament’s power to sack top judges, in a landmark verdict that lawyers said on Wednesday bolstered the independence of the country’s judiciary.
The country’s top court restored a military rule-era provision which allows only a Supreme Judicial Council, led by the chief justice, to remove judges found to have breached the judicial code of conduct.
The full ruling released on Tuesday was quickly hailed by lawyers as a crucial safeguard for the freedom of the Moslem-majority nation’s secular judiciary. "The judgement declares the 16th amendment of the constitution as null and void. It means the highest court scraps the parliament’s power to remove top judges," said senior lawyer Syed Ahsanul Karim.
Karim said that because of the "landmark" judgement, the executive "will have no dominant role over the judiciary".
Karim said if the amendment had been left in place, it would have made top judges "subservient" to the government as they would have been under constant threat of removal.
Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. brought the constitutional change allowing parliament -- controlled by her ruling Awami League party -- to remove top judges in September 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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Venezuela's money, the bolivar, is sinking faster and faster under an intensifying political and economic crisis that has left citizens destitute and increasingly desperate. Its depreciation accelerated this week, after a disputed vote electing an all-powerful "Constituent Assembly" filled with allies of President Nicolas Maduro, which the opposition and dozens of countries have called illegitimate.
On Thursday alone, the bolivar slumped nearly 15 percent on the black market, to be worth 17,000 to one US dollar.
In a year, the currency has lost 94 percent. Bernie Sanders' Economic Miracle
The decline has been dizzying -- yet largely ignored by the government, which uses an official rate fixed weekly that is currently 2,870 to the dollar.
Ordinary Venezuelans, however, refer only to the black market rate they have access to, which they call the "dolar negro," or "black dollar."
"Every time the black dollar goes up, you're poorer," resignedly said Juan Zabala, an executive in a reinsurance business in Caracas.
- Salaries decimated -
His salary is 800,000 bolivares per month. On Thursday, that was worth $47 at the parallel rate. A year ago, it was $200.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2017 08:40 ||
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[FoxBusiness] The U.S. economy added 209,000 net new jobs in July, beating expectations for 183,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.3% from 4.4%, while the labor force participation rate edged up to 62.9% from 62.8% during the month. Average hourly earnings meanwhile increased by 9 cents.
The jobs numbers come on the heels of a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP, which revealed that 178,000 private sector jobs were added in July, below economists' expectations of 185,000.
This suggests the remaining jobs were added by companies small enough that they choose not to pay an outside firm to handle payroll for them, the traditional engine of job growth in America.
Also:
[Ynet] The Commerce Department said Friday that the trade gap slid 5.9 percent in June to $43.6 billion.
Exports of goods and services rose 1.2 percent to $194.4 billion, the highest amount since December 2014 on higher foreign demand for American soybeans, computer accessories and other products.
What about oil and natural gas?
Services exports reached a record $65.4 billion. US exports may be getting a lift from a pickup in global economic growth and a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies. A weaker dollar makes American products a better bargain in foreign markets. Overall imports slipped 0.2 percent to $238 billion on a drop in demand for cellphones and other household goods.
So far this year, the trade deficit is up 10.7 percent to $276.6 billion.
#1
When you are no longer under the expectation that new and more crippling regulations are about to be dumped on you (from DC Central Planning), you can take stock and expand operations rather than hunker down.
#2
FWIW, the Mass. New Corporations book for January was 152 pages (February's is 94); that's the largest I've seen since I've been getting them (about four years now).
#3
Raj, is that Mass as in Massaholia? If so does it break it out by company? I ask because my son started one a few years ago, Social Made Simple, so I know what his numbers look like.
#4
AlanC - yes it is, and it's basically an alphabetically listed data dump of very basic corporate information - name, address and a list of the officers. For the ones I send letters out to, I do go onto the website and see what industry they're in, because I'm not sending out letters to restaurants, nail salons & landscapers, just to name a few - these companies tend to be out of business real quick.
[Breitbart] The U.S. Coast Guard commandant has announced he will disregard President Donald Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military.
Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, who took charge of the Coast Guard under former President Barack Obama, says he "will not break faith" with transgenders under his command.
"The first thing we did is we reached out to all 13 members of the Coast Guard who have come out" as transgender, Zukunft said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, reports the Hill.
#8
Yep, but those in the service understand 1) Warning Order and 2) Commanders intent. WOs are just as often verbal as textual, particularly if you are in a fluid environment.
#11
Yo Paulie, what's your plan once you've left government service? Its not like you can't another Capt Crunch to run the Coast Guard...
Posted by: Regular joe ||
08/04/2017 16:38 Comments ||
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#12
13 Shallow Water Sailors is all it takes for this putz to toss everything away???
if DJT doesn't have Mad Dog sh!tcan him like previous comments say, all 'good order and discipline' is right down the ol' USS Ford Non urinal equipped sh!tters....
#14
Coastlines work for DHS, so Mattis is their boss. Whomever Trump picks can expect this jerkoff's insubordinate attitude to be the content of the confirmation hearings. Makes you wonder who called him with guidance and how that might constitute a crime.
[DAWN] LAHORE: A group of young lawyers barged into Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah’s courtroom on Wednesday and created a hostile situation for the bench holding contempt of court proceedings against the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s (LHCBA) Multan president.
The five-member bench -- comprising the LHC chief justice, Justice Muhammad Anwarul Haq, Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti and Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza -- was scheduled to resume hearing at 11am. However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... at the scheduled time dozens of lawyers gathered in front of the courtroom with the intent to sabotage its proceedings.
They shouted slogans against the chief justice and the other judges for hearing the case against their colleague. In the midst of the ruckus, the police deployed in front of the chief justice’s courtroom did not intervene, claiming that they wanted to avoid a clash with the aggressive lawyers.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] BAHAWALPUR: A woman along with her three minor children allegedly attempted self-immolation on Wednesday in protest against a panchayat’s verdict in Ahmadpur Sharqia.
Fatima Bibi doused herself and her two sons Hussain, Tayyub and daughter Shabana in petrol in protest against a decision of the panchayat at Munir Shaheed Chowk.
On Tuesday, a panchayat forced her husband Allah Nawaz to pay within two days a sum of Rs600,000 which he had allegedly stolen from landlord Nazar Hussain at Tibbi Izzt village.
A large number of people gathered at the scene and averted her attempt.
SHO Tahir Iqbal confirmed the incident and said a case [of suicide attempt] against Allah Nawaz was registered. He said the panchayat headed by Riffat Rehmani asked Nawaz to pay the [stolen] amount after a foot tracer (khoji) found his alleged involvement in the theft.
No action against any punchayat member was taken.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2017 00:00 ||
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[Free Beacon] Health care insurers in Idaho have requested premium rate hikes as high as 81 percent for next year, according to the state's Department of Insurance.
The five insurers serving the individual market in Idaho are Blue Cross of Idaho Health Service, Mountain Health Co-Op, PacificSource Health Plans, Regence BlueShield of Idaho, and SelectHealth.
For all plans, insurers requested rates ranging from a low of 25 percent to a high of 51 percent for a combined average statewide rate increase of 38 percent. For Obamacare's popular Silver plan, the average rate increase among all insurers was even higher at 50 percent, with one insurer requesting a high of 81 percent.
"I am deeply disappointed and frustrated to share these rates," said Dean Cameron, who directs the department. "I understand how difficult it will be for Idahoans to afford reasonable coverage, especially those without a subsidy."
He noted that premiums for the Silver plans are significantly higher due to the uncertainty of Obamacare's cost-sharing reduction program.
#1
Mostly empty train car, two transit police idling in the back, feral yoots and 'the vic'.
Apparently they exited the train and really hammered the guy.
DART was sluggish getting help to Jones and didn't get investigating until the videos surfaced.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AP] BALTIMORE (AP) -- Last week, the number of homicides in Baltimore surpassed 200, making 2017 a record-setting year for violence on the city’s streets.
[APNEWS] The actor who played Luke Duke on the 1980s television show "The Dukes of Hazzard" 
[DAWN] Zookeepers never expected a 23-year-old giant panda to give birth again when she was moved to a nature reserve in southwest China to live out the rest of her days.
[Dhaka Tribune] 
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[FoxBusiness] The U.S. economy added 209,000 net new jobs in July, beating expectations for 183,000 jobs. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.3% from 4.4%, while the labor force participation rate edged up to 62.9% from 62.8% during the month. Average hourly earnings meanwhile increased by 9 cents. 
[DAWN] LAHORE: A group of young lawyers barged into Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah’s courtroom on Wednesday and created a hostile situation for the bench holding contempt of court proceedings against the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s (LHCBA) Multan president.
[DAWN] BAHAWALPUR: A woman along with her three minor children allegedly attempted self-immolation on Wednesday in protest against a panchayat’s verdict in Ahmadpur Sharqia.
