Today's News: March 14, 2018

World News

Stephen Hawking: Visionary physicist dies aged 76
BBC – World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.
He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday, his family said.

Australia considers visas for white South African farmers
BBC – South Africa has dismissed claims its white farmers are “persecuted” after an Australian minister said they needed help from a “civilised” country.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said he is exploring giving South Africa’s white farmers access to fast-track visas on humanitarian grounds.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Five Critical Questions That Need to Be Answered One Month After the Florida Shooting
Free Thought Project – As millions of kids walk out of school today to beg the government to disarm them, the victims and their families are still left without answers to some of the most glaring questions about the Florida shooting.

Why is the media refusing to report on Cruz’s alleged use of antidepressants?
Why were first responders told to stand down?
Why did the FBI and police essentially allow the shooting to take place by failing to act on the myriad of warnings?
Why haven’t we heard any more on the claims of multiple shooters?

“Because when shots were fired, I saw him after the fact. The shots were coming from the other part of the building. So, there definitely had to be two shooters involved,” she explained.
Why are police refusing to release the surveillance footage?

Ohio town must pay back millions of fines collected from speed cameras, court rules
Fox News – A small Ohio town that lived by the red light camera could soon die by it, after a federal court ruled the speed trap has to pay back more than $3 million in automated speeding tickets.
The case of New Miami, population 2,321, highlights the controversy behind the tickets, which make stoplight-running motorists see red, but help keep the budgets of cities and towns in the black. New Miami will almost certainly go bankrupt if the Supreme Court doesn’t reverse a lower court’s ruling and spare it from refunding tens of thousands of tickets at $180 apiece plus interest.
“The village enacted this unconstitutional scheme primarily as a money making venture,” Josh Engel, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the New Miami case, told Fox News. “They increased their spending significantly after the scheme was put in place and it was basically used to fill holes in their budget that would traditionally have come from raising taxes.”

Edward Snowden May Have Info That Would TAKE DOWN The Deep State
SHFTPlan – A new report by the YouTube channel X22 Report claims that the deep state may want NSA leaker, Edward Snowden. Apparently, Snowden may have information that could take them all down.
Dave from the X22 Report begins by stating the obvious: big tech giants such as YouTube have been taking down news channels that don’t align with the deep state’s brand of tyranny. But he says to watch for people to dump stocks as the Internet Bill of Rights (IBOR) becomes more widely accepted (the regulation of tech giants to stop censorship). Because once freedom is speech is allowed online again, all of the information can come out, and Snowden may have more that will cripple the deep state.

AG Sessions Orders Crackdown on Background Check Frauds
Newsmax – Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday ordered federal prosecutors to “swiftly and aggressively” enforce laws against people who lie to thwart background checks, one of several initiatives Justice Department officials announced as part of its plan to improve school safety following a mass shooting at a Florida high school one month ago where a gunman killed 17.

5 of the Most Violent Cities in the WORLD Are Right Here in America
SHFTPlan – When you think of the most dangerous, violent cities in the world, do you picture slums in Third World countries with vicious drug cartels or arrogant warlords?
FIVE of the world’s most violent cities are right here on the American mainland and another is in an American territory. The list was created by researchers of anti-violence think-tank Seguridad, Justicia Y Paz (Security, Justice, and Peace), who made their rankings based on statistics of homicides per 100,000 residents.
The vast majority of the cities on the list were in Central and South America. Interestingly, the violence in Venezuela appears to have dropped in violence this year, but not because it’s suddenly become a mecca of safety. The official situation there has devolved so much that they simply can’t track all the homicides.
But back to America
We pride ourselves on our first world status and civilized societies, and yet four of our cities ended up on the list of the most dangerous and violent locales on the planet.
They are:

#13 St. Louis
#21 Baltimore
#32 San Juan
#41 New Orleans
#42 Detroit

US Students Stage School Walkouts to Protest Gun Violence
Newsmax – Young people in the U.S. walked out of school to demand action on gun violence Wednesday in what activists hoped would be the biggest demonstration of student activism yet in response to last month’s massacre in Florida. More than 3,000 walkouts were planned across the U.S.
>>Related: Gov Schools to Become Anti-Gun Political Platforms Thanks to Neo-Marxist Organization
SHFTPlan – All across America, thousands of publicly funded schools, government schools, have decided to open their doors to the neo-Marxist organization known as the Women’s March, a highly partisan, far-left radical organization. They have opened their doors and allowed this organization to “aid” students in staging a “National School Walkout” in protest of your ability to own and possess effective means of self-defense. To put in terms that these far-left radicals would rather you not hear, they are organizing your children, using your stolen wealth (school taxes), to march in favor of a police state, to march against your ability to acquire and possess tools of self-defense, guns.

Illegals charged for voting in presidential election
Activist Post – Three illegal aliens in Illinois were indicted on felony charges for voting in the 2016 election. The clerk’s office of Lake County, north of Chicago, discovered the alleged crimes, charging three illegal aliens with perjury for misrepresenting their citizenship. Two other local residents were charged with voting twice, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Trump: Pay For the Border Wall With Sanctuary City Funds
Newswars – A border wall with Mexico could initially be financed by withholding federal funds from rogue ‘sanctuary’ cities, counties, and states – an idea that is being floated by President Trump and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC).
“In the upcoming omnibus budget bill, Congress must fund the border wall and prohibit grants to sanctuary jurisdictions that threaten the security of our country and the people of our country,” Trump said yesterday during his visit to California to inspect border wall prototypes. “We must enforce our laws and protect our people.”

Economy & Business

Airlines To Price Based On Online Shopping Habits?
CBS – New preferential pricing could take off at some major airlines, as providers are looking at ways to charge passengers based on their online shopping habits.
People who spend more may find themselves paying higher prices. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is preemptively asking the federal government to protect passengers from technology that uses personal information such as income to affect pricing.

Equifax Exec Charged With Insider Trading
Infowars – After demanding that “somebody needs to go to jail” during a Congressional hearing about the Equifax breach late last year, the Department of Justice on Wednesday charged Jun Ying, the former chief information officer of one Equifax business unit, with insider trading, claiming he knowingly sold shares before the company revealed a massive data breach last year.

Energy & Environment

Pentagon To Begin Moving Classified Data To AMAZON Secret Cloud…]
Nextgov – Microsoft withdrew a bid protest that allows U.S. Transportation Command to begin migrating data to Amazon’s secret cloud region.
For the first time, the Defense Department will begin moving classified data and applications to Amazon Web Services’ Secret Region—the same cloud environment developed for the CIA and intelligence community several years ago.
U.S. Transportation Command—the part of the department responsible for moving troops and equipment around the globe—announced its intent to make use of AWS’ Classified Secret Commercial Cloud Services in December after the company expanded its capabilities and availability to non-intelligence agencies.

How to find hidden cancers? Doctors try glowing dyes
ABC – t was an ordinary surgery to remove a tumor — until doctors turned off the lights and the patient’s chest started to glow. A spot over his heart shined purplish pink. Another shimmered in a lung. They were hidden cancers revealed by fluorescent dye, an advance that soon may transform how hundreds of thousands of operations are done each year.

Amazon recalls fire-risk power packs in UK, Europe and US
BBC – Owners of Amazon’s own-brand power bank chargers have been contacted by the firm telling them to stop using them.
A recall covering six models of the AmazonBasics-branded product was announced in the US and Canada on Tuesday.
A notice posted by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) warned the packs could “overheat and ignite, posing fire and burn hazards”.

National Geographic Joins Sprint to Promote 5G Despite Decades of Research Showing Harm to Wildlife from Cell Phone and Wireless Radiation. Two Paws Down.
Activist Post – Sad and weird but true. On January 23, 2018, National Geographic partnered with Sprint to offer a platform for Sprint to advertise 5G.
Decades of research on cell phone radiation, other sources sources of wireless (WiFi) radiation as well as electrical pollution (Electrosmog) has also already proven that exposure to any and all of the above cause serious harm to nature, animals (including pets), and humans – especially those who are already vulnerable like children, the disabled, and the elderly.
So why exactly is National Geographic promoting 5G for Sprint? According to this September 9, 2015 article from The Washington Post:
On Wednesday, the iconic yellow-bordered (National Geographic) magazine, beset by financial issues, entered its own uncharted territory. In an effort to stave off further decline, the magazine was effectively sold by its nonprofit parent organization to a for-profit venture whose principal shareholder is one of Rupert Murdoch’s global media companies.
In exchange for $725 million, the National Geographic Society passed the troubled magazine and its book, map and other media assets to a partnership headed by 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch-controlled company that owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox television network and Fox News Channel.

Gardening, Farming & Homesteading

How To Make Pancake Syrup … From Birch Trees
Off The Grid News – Birch syrup is an alternative to maple syrup that is commonly grown across the northern United States, Canada and in northern Europe. While other birch products such as birch beer might seem more commonplace, birch syrup is a hot commodity, fetching over $30 per 250ml bottle in some locations. It is high in vitamins and minerals, and even can be used as a tonic.
Best yet? Birch syrup can be easily produced on any homestead with an abundance of birch trees, and if you’re already tapping maples, you don’t need to give that up. The two can be tapped concurrently, and the equipment needed is identical for both.

Health

BREAKING: Major Health Freedom Victory! 4 Vaccine Bills Defeated in FL
GreenMedInfo – After a deluge of vaccine bills threatening to strip health freedom flooded the FL legislature earlier this year, the concerted efforts of grassroots activists and independent media emerged victorious with all 4 bills now officially withdrawn and defeated.
Two identical bills submitted to the Florida Senate and the House of Representatives in January mandating HPV vaccines for school children have been defeated. Two other bills released the same month which would have forced those who opt out of vaccines for their children to be entered into a centralized database which would track their whereabouts (and make possible State-mandated “home visits” to coerce or force vaccine compliance), have also been withdrawn from the Florida Senate and House. All four bills were permanently withdrawn on 3/10/2018.

How to Recommend Alternative Medicine to Reluctant Family Members
Care2 – Sharing a new idea or way of doing something can be challenging. If you come at it from the wrong angle, then you’ve got the Great Wall of China separating you and your loved one for who knows how long. Change and newness spark fear and anxiety in most people. It’s uncomfortable at the bare minimum. It’s this discomfort that often keeps people from venturing forth and trying new things. And it’s this discomfort that can make it difficult to make recommendations for alternative medicine to your family members.