| ‘Impeach President Bannon’ street art protest takes aim at Trump’s controversial chief strategist Posted: 19 Feb 2017 01:54 PM PST  A sign protesting "President Bannon" is seen in San Francisco. "Impeach President Bannon" posters were spotted in Washington, New York City and several other major cities on Sunday, part of a Presidents' Day weekend demonstration against President Trump's controversial White House chief strategist and senior adviser, Steve Bannon. "No one voted for Steve Bannon," the California-based organizers of the protest wrote in an email to Yahoo News.
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| Paroled gang member allegedly kills Whittier officer Posted: 20 Feb 2017 04:06 PM PST  WHITTIER, Calif. (AP) — A gang member paroled from jail only days ago shot and killed a Whittier police officer who was answering a report of a traffic accident and wounded his partner Monday before being wounded himself, authorities said.
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| Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT Posted: 19 Feb 2017 12:05 PM PST ![Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT]( "Democrat member of FEC to make early exit: NYT") A Democrat who sits on the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) is planning to resign before her term expires amid frustrations about partisan gridlock, the New York Times reported on Sunday. FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel told the Times in an interview she intended to submit her letter of resignation this week, a move that would open the door for President Donald Trump to make his own appointment to the panel. "The ability of the commission to perform its role has deteriorated significantly," Ravel told the newspaper.
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| Nigeria urges AU to intervene over 'SAfrica killings' Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:27 AM PST  Nigeria on Monday urged the African Union to step in to stop what it said were "xenophobic attacks" on its citizens and other Africans in South Africa. "This is unacceptable to the people and government of Nigeria," a senior presidential aide on foreign affairs, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said in an emailed statement. There was no independent verification of the claimed number of deaths, which may have been the result of wider criminal activities rather than anti-immigrant sentiment.
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| A controversial executive order leads to internment camps Posted: 19 Feb 2017 08:00 AM PST  On this day in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued his most-controversial executive order, an act that sent more than 100,000 people to government-controlled facilities because of their ethnicity.
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| Explosive blog post details ‘abhorrent’ sexism at Uber Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:46 PM PST 
In a blog post published Sunday, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler Riggetti details her experiences working for the company. Sadly, given she's a female engineer working at a thrusting, big-name Silicon Valley startup, the experiences are exactly what you'd expect.
In the post, Riggetti details numerous instances of overt sexist behaviour. She reportedly sent evidence, including email and chat logs to HR, but ran into a brick wall multiple times. In the end, she says that her attempts to quietly report sexist behaviour were turned against her: I forwarded this absurd chain of emails to HR, and they requested to meet with me shortly after. I don't know what I expected after all of my earlier encounters with them, but this one was more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined. The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that *I* was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem. I pointed out that everything I had reported came with extensive documentation and I clearly wasn't the instigator (or even a main character) in the majority of them - she countered by saying that there was absolutely no record in HR of any of the incidents I was claiming I had reported (which, of course, was a lie, and I reminded her I had email and chat records to prove it was a lie). She then asked me if women engineers at Uber were friends and talked a lot, and then asked me how often we communicated, what we talked about, what email addresses we used to communicate, which chat rooms we frequented, etc. - an absurd and insulting request that I refused to comply with. When I pointed out how few women were in SRE, she recounted with a story about how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds were better suited for some jobs than others, so I shouldn't be surprised by the gender ratios in engineering. Our meeting ended with her berating me about keeping email records of things, and told me it was unprofessional to report things via email to HR.
Beyond the reports to HR, Riggetti also details a company overrun with internal politics and management problems: In the background, there was a game-of-thrones political war raging within the ranks of upper management in the infrastructure engineering organization. It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor's job. No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: they boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like.
Shortly after the blog post was published, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a statement promising a (secret, internal) investigation into the matter, and reaffirmed Uber's committment to a equitable workplace where everyone isn't trying to stab each other in the back: "I have just read Susan Fowler's blog. What she describes is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in. It's the first time this has come to my attention so I have instructed Liane Hornsey our new Chief Human Resources Officer to conduct an urgent investigation into these allegations. We seek to make Uber a just workplace and there can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber -- and anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired."
This isn't the first time that Uber has run into human resources problems within its internal teams and management. In 2014, an Uber exec famously suggested digging up dirt on journalists to discredit them. That statement came in response to a journalist who had accused Uber of sexism once again. More recently, #DeleteUber trended on Twitter after Uber removed surge pricing at JFK airport during a taxi strike -- a strike that was in protest of President Trump's Muslim travel ban. The same hashtag is trending again tonight following Riggetti's blog post.
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| US Aircraft Carrier Strike Group Patroling South China Sea Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:31 PM PST  China has warned against challenging its sovereignty in the region despite competing claims by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
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| Bouche à Oreille: Michelin mixup makes modest French café a star Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:40 PM PST ![Bouche à Oreille: Michelin mixup makes modest French café a star]( "Bouche à Oreille: Michelin mixup makes modest French café a star") Last week, Bouche à Oreille, a café in Bourges, central France, found itself suddenly in possession of a Michelin star. The eatery, which serves hearty dishes of beef bourguignon and lasagna to its clientele of locals, was taken aback by the arrival of swarms of new visitors. Thanks to their identical names, and eerily similar street addresses, the Michelin website had listed the Bourges café on its website by mistake.
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| Ex-cop says Duterte paid him, others to kill crime suspects Posted: 20 Feb 2017 01:51 AM PST  MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A retired Philippine police officer said Monday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was a mayor, ordered and paid him and other members of a so-called liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents, including a kidnapping suspect, his family and a critical radio commentator.
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| Debt-saddled Mongolia agrees $5.5 bn IMF bailout Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:07 PM PST  Mongolia has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a $5.5 billion bailout package, officials announced, as the debt-wracked country tries to stabilise its economy. The landlocked north Asian nation has been hit hard by a more than 50 percent fall over the past five years in the price of copper, its main export. Billions of dollars' worth of natural resources lie buried beneath Mongolia's sprawling steppes, but development has been delayed for years and slowing growth in its biggest customer China has hobbled the economy.
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| Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:04 AM PST ![Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests]( "Indonesia Islamists urge ouster of Jakarta governor, plan more protests") Indonesian Islamist groups on Monday called on the government to suspend the Christian governor of the capital and for the courts to convict him of blasphemy, demands they will make again at a rally outside parliament on Tuesday. Islamist groups have held two big rallies since November against the governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is on trial for insulting the Koran, and in the midst of an election in which he hopes to win a second term. "Our demands to parliament are that they urge the government to suspend Purnama ... and urge the Supreme Court and judges to detain him and impose the maximum sentence," said Muhammad al Khaththath of the Islamic People's Forum.
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| Fantasy league aims to lure US students to economics Posted: 18 Feb 2017 07:03 PM PST  Have you needed to use your high school chemistry recently? The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, part of the US central bank system, is on the forefront of trying to make economic and personal finance information accessible to the general public, and especially to students.
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| Shocker! World’s first self-driving car race ends in a crash Posted: 20 Feb 2017 11:40 AM PST 
The world's first race on a professional track involving self-driving cars ended, not surprisingly, with a crash. As part of the Roborace competition held in Buenos Aires over the weekend, one of the two self-driving Devbot vehicles involved in the race slammed into a wall after miscalculating a particularly sharp turn.
While the Devbot vehicles weren't going all out, they weren't exactly driving at a leisurely pace either. At their best, both cars were driving in excess of 100 MPH, with one reaching a top speed of 115 MPH at one point. In addition to racing around the track at high speeds, it's worth noting that each car can communicate with the other as to prevent them from crashing into each other. Unfortunately, the racetrack wall proved to be an insurmountable foe. As for the software malfunction that caused the crash, Roborace's Justin Cooke explained what happened in an interview with the BBC: One of the cars was trying to perform a manoeuvre, and it went really full-throttle and took the corner quite sharply and caught the edge of the barrier. It's actually fantastic for us because the more we see these moments the more we are able to learn and understand what was the thinking behind the computer and its data.
Indeed, for as far along as self-driving software and hardware has progressed, it's clear that there's still a lot of work to be done before self-driving cars can replace human drivers completely across all driving environments. While the DevBot vehicles are designed such that they "can be driven by a human or a computer", the versions used in the race over the weekend did not have any humans inside. Photos of the crash can be seen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSbSUeKEj00
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| Kim Dotcom Eligible For US Extradition Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:07 AM PST  The New Zealand High Court said, however, that the extradition is not based on copyright grounds, and Dotcom's legal team is "confident" the decision will be reversed.
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| On frozen fields, North Korean farmers prep for battle ahead Posted: 19 Feb 2017 05:38 PM PST  PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Plug your noses and ready your "Juche fertilizer." It's time to prep the frozen fields in North Korea.
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| Don’t Look Now, But There’s Another Greek Debt Crisis Brewing Posted: 20 Feb 2017 04:00 AM PST  Talks over Athens' debt burden threaten to spill into European election season.
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| Women named to head Saudi bourse, major bank Posted: 20 Feb 2017 07:41 AM PST  Women have been named to head Saudi Arabia's stock exchange and a major bank, the institutions announced, despite the kingdom's social restrictions on females. Samba Financial Group on Sunday said Rania Mahmoud Nashar had begun work as chief executive officer. The announcement came three days after the Saudi stock exchange, known as Tadawul, named Sarah al-Suhaimi as chairman of its board.
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| Governor's proposed gun permit fees come under fire Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:31 AM PST ![Governor's proposed gun permit fees come under fire]( "Governor's proposed gun permit fees come under fire") HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Gun rights supporters and state Republican lawmakers are fighting huge gun permit fee increases proposed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, saying they would price many people out of being able to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
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| Atlanta, other cities eye test tracks for self-driving cars Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:27 AM PST  ATLANTA (AP) — Self-driving vehicles could begin tooling down a bustling Atlanta street full of cars, buses, bicyclists and college students, as the city vies with other communities nationwide to test the emerging technology.
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| Libya's Seraj sees Russia as possible intermediary with eastern commander Posted: 19 Feb 2017 09:03 AM PST ![Libya's Seraj sees Russia as possible intermediary with eastern commander]( "Libya's Seraj sees Russia as possible intermediary with eastern commander") By Shadia Nasralla and Andreas Rinke MUNICH (Reuters) - Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Seraj of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli said on Sunday he would like Russia to help overcome deadlock in the country, which is struggling with divisions among militias and an Islamist militant threat. In an interview with Reuters, Seraj expressed hope that Moscow might act as an intermediary between him and Khalifa Haftar, a military commander who is supported by factions based in the east of Libya. Seraj's Government of National Accord has been trying to formulate plans for unified Libyan security forces since arriving in Tripoli in March, but has made little progress.
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| Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:25 AM PST ![Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk]( "Scuffles at Thai temple as police hunt for monk") By Cod Satrusayang and Aukkaraporn Niyomyat BANGKOK (Reuters) - Monks and police scuffled on Monday at a Buddhist temple in Thailand where security forces are trying to arrest an influential former abbot on money-laundering charges. The standoff at the scandal-hit Dhammakaya Temple represents one of the biggest challenges to the authority of Thailand's junta since it took power in 2014. Police said they would try to avoid violence while threatening arrest for followers of the sprawling temple who have defied orders to leave and instead flocked there, hampering the search for 72-year-old Phra Dhammachayo.
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| Police Build Kitty Condo for Stray Cat That Has Been Visiting Department For Years Posted: 19 Feb 2017 12:57 PM PST  One officer spent several nights working on the condo.
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| Global arms trade highest since Cold War: study Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:11 PM PST  Worldwide arms trade has risen to its highest level since the Cold War in the last five years, driven by a demand from the Middle East and Asia, a study said Monday. Between 2012-2016, arms imports in terms of volume by countries in Asia and Oceania accounted for 43 percent of global imports, a 7.7 rise compared to the previous 2007-2011 period, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). "Transfer of major weapons in 2012-16 reached their highest volume for any five-year period since the end of" the Cold War, the independent institute said in a statement.
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| This Week Fast Forward 02.19.2017 Posted: 19 Feb 2017 08:37 AM PST  Speed through the highlights from the latest "This Week."
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| Toughening penalties if pets are harmed during crimes Posted: 19 Feb 2017 02:53 PM PST  FLORIDA, N.Y. (AP) — When Denise Krohn came home to find her goldendoodle Kirby bleeding on the kitchen floor, she at first thought it was a terrible accident. But she soon realized that her home had been ransacked, and that her other dog, Quigley, was lying dead on his favorite blanket in the living room.
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| 2017 Mercedes-Maybach S550 4MATIC Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:15 PM PST  A perfectly restrained chauffeur-mobile.
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| Ukraine rebels accuse OSCE of aiding Kiev forces Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:23 AM PST  Ukraine's Russian-backed insurgents on Friday accused a top official in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of aiding Kiev's forces in the 34-month war. A separatist leader made the accusation at a joint news conference in the rebel-controlled city of Lugansk with Alexander Hug -- the principal deputy chief of the group's special monitoring mission to Ukraine --- who denied the claim. The OSCE is a Cold-war era body drawn up to ensure peace in Europe.
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| China names and shames cities over smog controls Posted: 19 Feb 2017 07:34 PM PST ![China names and shames cities over smog controls]( "China names and shames cities over smog controls") China's environment ministry has named and shamed several cities in the north of the country for not doing enough to cope with smog, state news agency Xinhua reported. Large parts of northern China have been blanketed in choking smog this winter, defying repeated government efforts to tackle the problem. Pollution alerts are common in northern China, especially during bitterly cold winters when energy demand, much of it met by coal, soars.
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| The United Arab Emirates wants to build a city on Mars Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:00 AM PST  Elon Musk isn't the only person who wants to build a city on Mars. Now the United Arab Emirates has announced that it wants to establish a "mini-city" on the red planet by 2117. UAE prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum explained the monarchy's Mars plans in a series of tweets on Feb. 14. SEE ALSO: Dubai is bringing the world its first rotating skyscraper "The project, to be named 'Mars 2117,' integrates a vision to create a mini-city and community on Mars involving international cooperation," Sheikh Mohammed said. "Mars 2117" is a seed we are sowing today to reap the fruit of new generations led by a passion for science and advancing human knowledge. pic.twitter.com/IExtnpiO2B — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 "Mars 2117 includes a major space sciences focus in our universities. We're building a space pioneering passion among our young people." It makes sense for officials to use this project to inspire young people: They're the ones who will probably do the vast majority of the work. If the UAE wants to have a fully-functioning city on Mars in 100 years, it will have to be a multi-generational effort that will span many decades, given the incipient state of the nation's space program and current global capabilities as well. The "Mars 2117" project will develop an Emirati and international team of scientists to push the human exploration of Mars in years to come. pic.twitter.com/5ujxvyC8As — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 In the time between now and 2117, the UAE, with an international partnership of researchers, will start trying to find a faster mode of transportation to the red planet, and figure out what food and shelter should be on the cold, dry world. "'Mars 2117' is a seed we are sowing today to reap the fruit of new generations led by a passion for science and advancing human knowledge," Sheikh Mohammed said. The UAE has already put the world on notice that the oil-rich nation has aspirations beyond our home planet, having previously announced its plan to send a robotic mission to Mars in 2015. That uncrewed spacecraft, called Hope, would fly to the red planet in 2020 and make it into orbit there in 2021. The project, to be named "Mars 2117", integrates a vision to create a mini-city and community on Mars involving international cooperation. pic.twitter.com/v27jA3K3pS — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 Musk's SpaceX is also working toward creating a city on Mars, though the commercial space company's timeline isn't exactly clear. Musk claims that SpaceX is working toward sending its first people to Mars by 2024, about a decade before NASA is expected to send their first crewed mission to the vicinity of Mars. That said, the company's plans are still a bit murky when it comes to the timeline for actually creating its city, aiming for sometime in the 2060s. Musk thinks there will be plenty of people who want to leave Earth behind. We aspire in the coming century to develop science, technology and our youth's passion for knowledge. This project is driven by that vision. pic.twitter.com/4QibJjtiM2 — HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) February 14, 2017 "Not everyone will want to go. In fact, I think a relatively small number of people from Earth would want to go, but enough would want to go and who could afford the trip that it would happen," Musk said during a speech in September 2016. Neither SpaceX nor the UAE can get to Mars alone, however. Both need to have international and private partners that will help make a city on Mars a reality within their timeframes. It's unclear if the monarchy and the private company will team up on their Mars ambitions, but Musk did say that he's open to public and private partnerships for the mission. BONUS: Obama plans to send humans to Mars by 2030s
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| ‘Pokémon GO’ Tips And Tricks To Maximize Gen 2 Pokémon Update Experience Posted: 18 Feb 2017 07:05 PM PST  There are a lot of things the Pokémon GO team said about the Gen 2 Pokémon Update, but these are the things they did not tell Trainers.
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| ICE arrests man who escaped Illinois prison in 2003 Posted: 19 Feb 2017 11:58 AM PST ![ICE arrests man who escaped Illinois prison in 2003]( "ICE arrests man who escaped Illinois prison in 2003") CHICAGO (AP) — A man who escaped from an Illinois prison in 2003 while serving an eight-year sentence on a drug charge has been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at his home in Atlanta.
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| Parts of South Sudan experiencing famine: government official Posted: 20 Feb 2017 01:03 AM PST ![Parts of South Sudan experiencing famine: government official]( "Parts of South Sudan experiencing famine: government official") By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - Parts of war-ravaged South Sudan have been hit by famine, a government official said on Monday, saying nearly half the country's population would lack reliable access to affordable food by July. Oil-rich South Sudan has been mired in civil war since 2013, when President Salva Kii fired his deputy. Since then the fighting has increasingly split the country along ethnic lines, leading the United Nations to warn of a potential genocide.
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| Families flee as Pakistan cracks down along Afghan border Posted: 20 Feb 2017 07:36 AM PST  Hundreds of families were fleeing from both sides of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan Monday, officials said, as Islamabad continued a violent crackdown on extremists after multiple attacks last week raised fears of a militant resurgence. Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harbouring the militants who carried out last week's attacks, which killed more than 100 people across the country. The Pakistani military said it used heavy artillery to fire at militant hideouts in Afghanistan Monday, after carrying out airstrikes on both sides of the border over the weekend.
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| Weaning off oil, Scottish islands eye renewable future Posted: 18 Feb 2017 08:10 PM PST  Strong winds and stormy seas have helped turn the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic into a European renewable energy giant, producing more power than it knows what to do with. The tidal power underwater turbines that were completed last month are only the latest green energy project for an archipelago that has been reliant for decades on the North Sea offshore industry. "We're not 100 percent self sufficient but we're quite a long way towards it," Jim Dickson, 69, told AFP at his home in the windswept village of Brae, referring to electricity generation for his own house.
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| Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport Posted: 18 Feb 2017 09:51 PM PST ![Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport]( "Man dies after breaching security at Honolulu airport") HONOLULU (AP) — A man is dead after he breached security at Honolulu International Airport and stopped breathing, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
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| UAE expects to award $5.4 billion deals at defense fair: expo says Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:51 AM PST ![UAE expects to award $5.4 billion deals at defense fair: expo says]( "UAE expects to award $5.4 billion deals at defense fair: expo says") The United Arab Emirates (UAE) awarded 4.5 billion dirhams ($1.2 billion) in military procurement deals on Sunday, part of a total of 20 billion dirhams worth of purchases it expects to make at an arms fair this week, a spokesman for the expo said. The deals awarded to local and international companies on Sunday included a 2 billion dirham award to the UAE's NIMR Automotive, part of Tawazun Holdings, for the supply of 400 armored vehicles to the UAE Armed Forces, Rashid al Shamsi, a spokesman for the International Defence Exhibition (Idex), said. "We expect (to award) more than 20 billion dirhams in contracts by the end of Idex," he said. Over 1,200 companies are participating at Idex, the region's largest defense expo.
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