Archived threads in /news/ - Current News - 144. page

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https://medium.com/@deanpomerleau_24908/time-to-challenge-fake-news-with-ai-7036a1f22c0d#.584iiicfk

http://pastebin.com/pYtMWGPD

>It seems that not a day goes by without the problem of ‘fake news’ making headlines in the United States. If anything, the problem is growing to become an international crisis, in countries such as South Africa, India, Australia, the Philippines and especially Europe, where concern is high in both Germany and France due to their upcoming elections. Like spam, fake news is a global problem.
Something needs to be done about the fake news problem, and a group of technologists, including this author, are taking up the challenge with a competition we are calling the Fake News Challenge (FNC).

In a nutshell, the Fake News Challenge is a competition in the spirit of the Netflix Prize designed to foster the development of AI technology to help solve the fake news problem. Starting today (Feb 1st, 2017), teams are being given a concrete fake news-related task for their systems to perform, along with training data on which to build and test their solutions. At the end of the competition (in early June) teams will be given a new, never-before-seen set of test data. They will be asked to run their algorithms on this new test data, and the three teams that score highest will be awarded cash prizes. The details of the prizes will be announced at a later date.

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>> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/13/extraordinary-levels-of-toxic-pollution-found-in-10km-deep-mariana-trench
> 'Extraordinary' levels of toxic pollution found in 10km deep Mariana trench

I would have said "Horrifying and Terrifying" levels. "Extraordinary" makes is sound as if he doesn't understand adjectives are positive or negative.

Every day more data shows us that society's pollution, sloth and greed is coming back to poison and kill all of us off early, painfully.

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Congressional Republicans began their plan to dismantle a rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission on oil, gas and mining companies that is aimed at preventing corruption.

>Rep. Bill Huizenga (R., Mich.) introduced a resolution that calls for the repeal the rule established by Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act that requires oil, gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments for things such as licenses and permits needed for development. It is the first step by House Republicans to move forward with their plan to use the Congressional Review Act to repeal the rule. Congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have separately prioritized taking apart regulatory provisions of the Dodd-Frank law, which was passed in the wake of the financial crisis.

>Activists and some observers have said for years that the foreign payments can be used to hide bribes to secure business, but industry groups have called the planned disclosure regime anti-competitive. The U.S. rule is scheduled to take effect in 2018; many resource-sector companies already began reporting such payments under similar rules imposed in Europe and Canada.

>The House Financial Services Committee said in a calendar update that the full House of Representatives will consider the resolution this week after the Rules Committee signed off on it during a Monday hearing.

>Mr. Huizenga said in a statement that the SEC rule “fails the agency’s core mission,” calling it “overly burdensome” and saying it puts U.S. companies at a disadvantage.

>“Transparency is a critical element in governance, and I believe there is a way for the SEC to achieve transparency regarding section 1504; however, this revised rule falls short and remains deeply flawed,” he said in the statement.

http://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2017/01/30/u-s-house-moves-forward-with-plan-to-kill-extractive-anti-graft-rule/?mod=google_news_blog

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http://www.whio.com/news/national/oklahoma-substitute-teacher-jailed-for-exposing-herself-students-during-cartwheel/9eLCsR27A4f266dPmdMGeL/

Where is the video?

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>> Russian city sees domestic violence incidents double after Putin decriminalises beatings
> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/russian-city-sees-domestic-violence-incidents-double-after-putin-decriminalises-physical-abuse-1606038?utm_campaign=soficalflowtwitter&utm_source=socialflowtwitter&utm_medium=articles

Russian cowards. They're likely retarded because they're inbred from raping their own mommies and daughters so often.

Cowards: People who terrorize and assault smaller people--usually women and children--because they're scared, pansy, sissy, faerie fags trying to impress all their fag buddies. Of course their fag leader is a rapist, killer ceo whore so it's to be expected. Put all of them russian guys together and still cant make a single man.

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The rule was meant to enforce an idea that might sound obvious: Retirement advisers have to act in the best interests of their customers.

>On Friday, President Trump took a step toward halting it.

>It's known as the fiduciary rule. It would have prohibited retirement advisers from accepting incentives for promoting certain funds over others. That can create a conflict of interest -- and advisers don't always have to disclose the incentives to clients.

>The incentives can include cash and even vacations, according to Michael Spellacy, global wealth management leader at PwC. A 2011 study found that advisers recommend the fund that pays them more about half the time.

>"Without this rule, customers are taking products that are very expensive from advisers who are incentivized for those products," Spellacy said.

>The rule was unveiled last year by the Obama administration, but wasn't set to go into effect until April.

>Proponents of the rule argued it was necessary to protect investors from abusive practices. The Consumer Federation of America said in a statement Friday that rolling it back would hurt the middle class.

>"Brokers and insurance agents will be free to go back to putting their own financial interests ahead of the interests of their clients, recommending investments that are profitable for the firm but not the customer," the consumer group said. "And they will be permitted to do all this while claiming to act as trusted advisers."

>Trump signed an executive order calling for the Labor Department to review the fiduciary duty rule.

>The change comes at an important time. Saving for retirement has become a major hurdle for Americans as pensions become extinct and the responsibility falls more heavily on individuals' shoulders. Many Americans turn to retirement advisers for advice to help build up their nest eggs.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/03/retirement/trump-executive-order-fiduciary-retirement-rule/

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https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/01/jury-awards-zenimax-500-million-in-oculus-vr-lawsuit/

>Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus just became a half billion more expensive.

>A jury in Dallas, Texas has awarded ZeniMax Media $500 million after finding that Palmer Luckey (and by extension Oculus VR) violated the terms of a non-disclosure agreement. The jury also found Oculus guilty on charges related to false designation and copyright infringement. Oculus was notably found not guilty on charges related to claims by ZeniMax that the company stole trade secrets to create the Rift headset, Polygon reports.

>Luckey must personally pay $50 million in the suit, while former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe will be forced to pay $150 million.

>Facebook is now telling TechCrunch that ZeniMax Media was actually seeking a reported $6 billion in this case, not the $4 billion that was previously reported. Given the maximum possible penalty, this obviously isn’t the worst possible outcome for Facebook, a company that is likely able to view a $500 million judgment as a slap on the wrist, especially given the resources they have been devoting to their virtual reality efforts.

>Facebook is set to release its quarterly earnings in just a few minutes; we’ll see if Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has anything to say on the investor call about this court decision and how it will impact the company.

>Update: Facebook has sent TechCrunch its official comment on the ruling.
...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4179940/The-Government-s-Brexit-plan-published-TOMORROW.html

>Britain passed the point of no return in its historic battle to cut ties with Brussels tonight as MPs backed the Brexit Bill.

>The Commons endorsed the legislation by 498 votes to 114 after the government saw off a desperate bid by more than 100 Remoaners to block it.

>In the first of a crucial set of votes in the Commons, a 'wrecking' amendment that would have effectively killed the law was defeated by 336 to 100.

>The House then gave the Bill its second reading by another huge margin, despite the opposition from Labour MPs, the SNP and most Liberal Democrats

Remaincucks BTFO yet again!

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http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/01/researchers-say-long-lost-continent-lies-beneath-indian-ocean-island.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/3-billion-old-crystals-deep-141000169.html
>When the Earth was new, there was one continent called Pangaea. About 175 million years ago this supercontinent started to break apart, and over millions of years the continents we know today were formed.

>Scientists are interested in finding out more about these early continental movements, and they've been gathering evidence that old continental crust may be lying beneath some oceanic volcanoes.

>A new study, which was published this week in the journal Nature Communications, suggests this crust is contributing parts of itself to some of those volcanoes. The evidence? Zircon crystals — some of the oldest rock fragments ever found on Earth — discovered within lava brought to the surface that are estimated to be between 2.5 and 3 billion years old.

>The research took place in Mauritius, where the crust underneath would have been part of the old continent Mauritia that broke away and formed Madagascar and India about 60 million years ago. The new findings could shed new light on the mechanisms of plate tectonics in these underwater hotspots, the researchers say.

>"Our findings tell us that rifting and break-up of continental entities, driven by plate tectonic processes, is more complex and messy than we previously thought," Lewis Ashwal, a petrology and geochemistry professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesberg and lead author of the paper, told Business Insider. "Fragments of continents of many sizes can be left behind in the new ocean basins, and some of them can be blanketed by younger lavas, and thus can be 'hidden' from view."
....
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14086

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When former President Barack Obama said he was “heartened” by anti-Trump protests, he was sending a message of approval to his troops. Troops? Yes, Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000 — who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House.

>In what’s shaping up to be a highly unusual post-presidency, Obama isn’t just staying behind in Washington. He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy, but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First” agenda.

>He’s doing it through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action. Normally you’d expect an organization set up to support a politician and his agenda to close up shop after that candidate leaves office, but not Obama’s OFA. Rather, it’s gearing up for battle, with a growing war chest and more than 250 offices across the country.

>Since Donald Trump’s election, this little-known but well-funded protesting arm has beefed up staff and ramped up recruitment of young liberal activists, declaring on its website, “We’re not backing down.” Determined to salvage Obama’s legacy,”it’s drawing battle lines on immigration, ObamaCare, race relations and climate change.

>Obama is intimately involved in OFA operations and even tweets from the group’s account. In fact, he gave marching orders to OFA foot soldiers following Trump’s upset victory.

>“It is fine for everybody to feel stressed, sad, discouraged,” he said in a conference call from the White House. “But get over it.” He demanded they “move forward to protect what we’ve accomplished.”

>“Now is the time for some organizing,” he said. “So don’t mope.”

http://nypost.com/2017/02/11/how-obama-is-scheming-to-sabotage-trumps-presidency/

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3523993/posts

> Chinese authorities block access to big-name websites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and numerous others, and to thwart these restrictions, many residents on the mainland use virtual private networks. Starting this week, that could be a crime. Use of VPNs and special cable connections in China must now be approved by the government, essentially making these services illegal in the country.

> China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the new rules on Sunday, as reported by the South China Morning Post. Calling it a "clean-up" of the country's internet connections, the Ministry said the new rules would go live immediately and be in place until March 31st, 2018.

> VPNs are already subject to government scrutiny and interference in China. The most recent, large-scale crackdown on VPNs happened in March 2016, during the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing, SCMP says.

> As The Washington Post points out, China's new VPN and cable regulations are purposefully vague. It's unclear how the government will implement or enforce these rules, but the language in the announcement suggests Chinese officials are taking aim at companies who provide VPN services to individual citizens, rather than professionals working for multinational corporations in the country.

> Last week, in stark contrast to the Ministry's new VPN rules, Chinese leader Xi Jinping defended the tenets of globalization at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

> "We must redouble efforts to develop global connectivity to enable all countries to achieve inter-connected growth and share prosperity. ... Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. While wind and rain may be kept outside, that dark room will also block light and air," he said.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

>The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

>The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.
But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

>It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised.
His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.

Whoa....it's almost like labyrinthine government bureaucracies and the organizations that benefit from them purposefully push things like this in order to consolidate money, power, and to push an agenda..........damn.

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> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/whale-rescuers-disheartened-new-pod-beaches-new-zealand-n719731
>> Tragedy at Farewell Spit: Toll of Stranded Whales Reaches 650 on New Zealand Beach

Notice they worry about a few slimy beasts while hundreds of thousands of children need help in their country. These people cannot sanely be trusted anywhere near children. Beyond sad and pathetic! Insane.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/7/trump-ready-to-approve-weapons-packages-to-saudi-a/

>The Trump administration is poised to move quickly to approve major weapons packages for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that President Obama blocked during his final months in office over human rights concerns in both nations, U.S. officials and congressional sources say

>The deals, if approved, would send a significant signal about the priorities of the new administration, where the security challenge posed by forces such as Islamist jihadi groups and Iran is taking a much greater precedence in setting foreign policy.

>The Pentagon also declined to comment. But congressional sources said they anticipate the Trump administration will easily overcome resistance on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and some Republicans have called for restrictions on sales to Riyadh amid an outcry from human rights groups over large-scale civilian casualties of the Saudi-led military campaign in neighboring Yemen.

>“While we’re very concerned about Saudi actions in Yemen in terms of the civilian casualties, we believe a more accurate partner is a more effective partner and results in fewer casualties,” the official said. “If they’re going to drop stuff, it should be precision-guided rather than dumb.”

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A lot of indigenous Canadians have been murdered / gone missing over the years, and the government finally decided to investigate. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the victims are male, Justin "Current Year" Trudeau originally only wanted to investigate the female victims. Men's rights groups naturally complained, and now it looks like Canada is going to expand the inquiry to include male victims as well

http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2017/02/03/mmiw-expands-men-boys-.html

>Exactly how issues surrounding murdered and missing indigenous boys and men will be included in the national inquiry on women and girls, already late in starting, is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.
>The inquiry commissioners are sensitive to the rising public debate and concerns involving the role that indigenous men and boys might play in the probe, including their own stories of violence, said an inquiry spokesperson, Michael Hutchinson.
. . .
>How included men and boys are going to be in the process needs to be decided because time and resources are an issue and the clock is ticking. The inquiry, made up of five commissioners who will examine the systemic causes of violence against indigenous women and girls, is expected to fully start this spring and wrap up at the end of December 2018.
>The original terms of reference for the inquiry, or, the mandate of the probe, focused on women and girls and did not include indigenous men and boys.
. . .
>Families have been discouraged by the lack of communication from the inquiry following the official date of its establishment on Sept. 1, Joe said. They have been waiting to find out more about who will hear their testimonies and when the hearings will take place in their area, she added.

(cont'd)