law

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Last Pacific Coast Coal Terminal Nixed - Industry’s dream to export U.S. coal to Asia is dead
The state of Washington's Department of Ecology has rejected a necessary water-quality permit sought by Millennium Bulk Logistics for its proposed coal-export terminal at Longview, Washington. Barring a successful appeal of the decision, this means the end of the line not only for Millennium's dream of building the largest coal-export facility in North America, but also for the coal industry's larger scheme to ship vast amounts of U.S. coal to Asian markets.

"This is the end," says Bruce Nilles, senior campaign director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "Almost exactly seven years ago, Peabody Coal proposed its first project to move huge amounts of coal around the globe. This is a testament to the tens of thousands of people who raised their voices and said, 'Hell no.'"

Shipping coal abroad was supposed to be a lifeline for the U.S. coal industry, given plummeting domestic demand as renewables became cost-competitive with fossil fuels. With vast coal reserves readily available in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, coal companies pinned their hopes on exporting it to Asia via seven proposed terminals on the West Coast. With Longview blocked, coal opponents are now seven for seven in stopping those terminals. (The others were to be at Cherry Point and Grays Harbor in Washington; Port Westward, Coos Bay, and Port of Morrow in Oregon; and Oakland, California.)

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"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon." - President George Washington

Image courtesy Fox News

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6 September, 2017
A temporary restraining order Wednesday spared a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from being taken down — just hours after the Dallas City Council signed off on the removal.

14 September, 2017
A statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from a Dallas park Thursday after a series of delays that included a brief court stay and a fatal accident involving a crane assigned to remove the statue. Fox 4 News reported that workers took nearly three hours to remove the statue from its pedestal and place it on a trailer that would take it to a storage facility until a final decision is made on the statue's fate. Fox 4 News reported that workers took nearly three hours to remove the statue from its pedestal and place it on a trailer that would take it to a storage facility until a final decision is made on the statue's fate.

*update* 28 September, 2017
Fox News: Growing debate over the removal of Confederate monuments Which Confederate statues were removed? A running list
Annapolis, Md.
Under cover of darkness, city workers removed a statue on Aug. 18 of former Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney that had been on the State House’s front lawn for 145 years.

Bradenton, Fla.  read more »

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The son of Cecil the Lion, the beloved animal killed two years ago by a Minnesota dentist, was shot dead near a Zimbabwe park, officials said.

Lion guardians at the Hwange National Park posted on Facebook Thursday that Xanda, a 6-year-old lion with a family of young cubs, was shot dead a few days ago. He was killed not far from where Cecil died.

"Today we heard that a few days ago, Xanda, the son of #CecilTheLion has been shot on a trophy hunt," the post read.

"We can't believe that now, 2 years since Cecil was killed, that his oldest Cub #Xanda has met the same fate," the park's lion guardians wrote on Facebook. "When will the Lions of Hwange National Park be left to live out their years as wild born free lions should."  read more »

Partnering with Nature is a time-honored tradition, Dutch police training golden eagles to catch drones

Prince Williams has flown for the Air Ambulance Service since 2015; a lethal drone comes within HALF A SECOND of Prince William's air ambulance.

A golden eagle grabs a flying drone during a military training exercise at Mont-de-Marsan French Air Force base, Southwestern France.

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February 8, 2016  read more »

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18 Jan 2017
Tourists Flee 'Nightmare' Paris Amidst Rising Theft, Assaults... Paris' regional tourism office last year reported a slump in visitor numbers to the city. Rising violence and aggression account for the drop. President of the Chinese Association of Travel Agencies in France, Jean-François Zhou, said "increasingly violent” thefts and assaults are turning France into "one of the worst destinations for foreign tourists." In 2016, there were 1.6 million Chinese tourists compared to 2.2 million in 2015. The number of Japanese tourists dropped 39 percent and Koreans 27 per cent."

18 Jan 2017
A lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot. French told not to fear wolves roaming Paris streets as 'they only eat four-legged animals.'
Parisians are frightened that the endangered beasts are now within howling distance of the capital and can't be stopped.

Only lone wolves have been spotted so far wandering its streets. Experts and eyewitnesses claim they are freely roaming French 'departments' (an administrative district) of Yvelines and Essone in Île-de-France - which overlaps with the Paris metropolitan area in the south and west - at night.

Warnings were first made last year when a lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot.

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Dec 28, 2016
open a bank account in just 8 minutes? you can lose it even faster - smartphone-only bank N26 German fintech company N26, which made its name mocking traditional banks, has found itself on the receiving end of criticism after a security researcher proved its smartphone apps exposed users to potential account hijacking.

N26, previously known as Number26, has expanded rapidly since it launched in early 2015 as a smartphone-only bank with no local branches, with the backing of major global investors including Silicon Valley's Peter Thiel.

Vincent Haupert, a research fellow and PhD student in the computer science department of the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, told the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg how he and two colleagues found N26 security defenses riddled with holes that could have been used to defraud thousands of users.

"They say you can open a bank account in just eight minutes," Haupert said. "As it turns out, you can lose it even faster." In a statement, N26 thanked Haupert for alerting the company to "a theoretical security vulnerability" and advising it on fixes, which N26 said it completed this month.

N26 offers a range of online banking and other financial services to 200,000 customers in 17 European countries through a banking license granted earlier this year by German financial regulator Bafin. N26 executives have been the most outspoken among new fintech players in arguing traditional banks are failing to serve customers more directly by relying on antiquated local branch relationships instead of modern, phone-based services.

"I don't see banks at all as my competitors. They just can't move fast enough," N26 Chief Executive Valentin Stalf told Reuters last year.  read more »