fuzhong.org

Monday, January 9, 2017

On Friday, the U.S. Congress completed the official counting of the electoral college votes, confirming Donald Trump’s pending U.S. presidency under their own authority. In most years, this is a formality, but amid concerns about Trump’s losing the popular vote by a considerable margin, Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and allegations that some of the presidential electors who supported Trump may have been ineligible to serve, more eyes than usual have followed the confirmation process. The final count was 304 votes for Trump and 227 for Hilary Clinton, with Colin Powell a distant third at 3.

The U.S. Constitution allows Congress to overrule the electoral college by rejecting invalid votes so long as the objections are made by at least one Representative and at least one Senator and, earlier this week, Representative Shiela Jackson Lee, and six other House Democrats attempted to get it to do just that. Representative Lee has argued that voter suppression was a serious matter in her home state of Texas. While the more reserved Jamie Raskin told Politico he would only get involved in the face of “evidence of technological tampering, ballot stuffing or the illegal purging of people from the rolls or exclusion of voters from the polls.” However, because these representatives were not able to recruit even one senator to join them, the objections were ruled out of order.

The organization Americans Take Action also claimed that roughly fifty presidential electors who supported Trump were ineligible to serve because they lived outside the districts they represented or held other government jobs. Although they did not claim that the voters in those districts did not actually cast for Trump or that the outcome would have been different with legitimate electors, eliminating those fifty votes would have put Trump below the 270 threshold that he would need to win. At that point, the Senate and House of Representatives would have chosen a president from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes: Trump, Clinton and Powell. Both houses of congress currently have Republican party majorities.

In the United States, the president is not elected through a direct popular vote. Rather, each U.S. state is given one presidential elector for each of its senators and representatives. In most states, whoever wins the popular vote within that state is slated to receive all of that state’s electoral votes. Complicating this process is the fact that while tradition dictates that electors must vote their constituencies, only 28 U.S. states have laws requiring them to do so, and no elector who has broken those laws has ever been prosecuted. This year, there were seven faithless electors, with two of Trump’s electors and five of Hilary Clinton’s voting their own consciences. There were protesters present in the gallery as the votes were counted. Three of them were removed by security, with one man shouting “One person, one vote!”

Customarily, the votes are read out loud in alphabetical order by state name. In U.S. history, objections to electoral votes have been rare and have been overruled by the rest of Congress.

The presidency has gone to someone who lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote five times in U.S. history, most recently to Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000.

Friday, August 4, 2006

New South Wales Police have arrested and charged a 39-year-old man from Warner’s Bay in Newcastle, on the NSW Central Coast after he allegedly stole jewelery from his employer and sold it on an Internet auction site.

According to police, the man stole over AU$100,000 worth of gold and diamond jewelery from a store where he worked and then sold them online. This is alleged to have occurred over a period of several months.

Police arrested the man at his workplace and found stolen items of jewelery at his home. Police charged the man with 34 counts of larceny as a servant or clerk.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.

The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.

Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”

Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.

Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

On Sunday, at a Bapist church originally founded by freed slaves, US President Barack Obama addressed the congregation about the “Dream” of slain civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—whom Obama credits with paving the way for his 2008 election—and about the importance of hope and faith in his own life.

On Monday, Obama, with his family in tow, served hot lunches at a local Washington soup kitchen—one of several ways America’s first black president planned to pay tribute to the late Dr. King on the federal holiday that honors his legacy and lasting impact upon society.

Later at the White House, Obama will host a gathering consisting of small selected group of African-American seniors and their grandchildren where they will discuss the meaning of the civil rights movement and how it still effects them to this day. Following which, that evening, the Obamas are slated to attend the “Let Freedom Ring” concert at the Kennedy Center. A musical event that will feature gospel artists and choir members from various area churches among other houses of worship.

Another prominent American politician, governor-elect of New Jersey, Chris Christie held a banquet on Monday evening to honor the importance of Dr. King’s message as well. Other commemorations included a march in Seattle where participants rallied for issues in the African-American community.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Despite pleas from Big Day Out promoters to leave the national flag of Australia at home, many of the 55,000 music lovers have turned up to the Sydney event covered in it.

Co-promoter Ken West caused a stir when the flag was “banned” from this year’s Big Day Out in Sydney after organisers branded it a “gang colour” and symbol of hate. Organizers of the rock festival had planned to confiscate any flag or bandanna bearing the national symbol at the gate. The organizers defended their action claiming Sydney was “a hot bed of racism.” They had already moved the event from the traditional time, Australia Day, to avoid these “nationalistic overtones.” The Prime Minister John Howard responded by declaring that the Big Day Out should have been cancelled unless organisers reversed their decision to ban the flag.

After widespread outrage on talkback radio, and condemnation of their action by the Prime Minister and state Premiers, Australians have literally worn their hearts on their sleeves by draping the Aussie flag over their shoulders or wearing t-shirts, tattoos or bikinis with it printed on it. Event organisers allowed hundreds of fans to bring Australian flags to the event, backing down on their earlier call to leave the emblem at home.

Melissa-Rose Heap, 18-years-old, of Kogarah, said she and her friends had fashioned the Australian flag into dresses after the banning controversy.

“We made them into dresses because they said we weren’t allowed to, and that’s not right,” she said. “They shouldn’t be able to tell anyone that we can’t be proud of Australia.”

Thursday, March 9, 2017

In a study that appeared on Monday in Biological Psychiatry, scientists from the Universities of California and North Carolina, with several other universities in the United States and Canada, report a strong correlation between abnormal distribution of cerebrospinal fluid in infants and later development of autistic symptoms.

“The more extra-axial CSF present at six months, the more severe the autism symptoms when the kids were diagnosed at 24 months of age,” said first author Dr. Mark Shen, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina.

The study covered 343 children examined aged six months, twelve months, and twenty-four months, 221 of whom had older siblings with autism. Children with higher than usual volumes of cerebrospinal fluid in the subarachnoid space — the area just around the brain — were more likely to be diagnosed with autism later in life, with a strong correlation in the high-risk group. Ultimately, cerebrospinal volume was able to provide an early diagnosis of probably ASD in high-risk children with 70% accuracy. The six-month-old babies who later went on to a diagnosis of autism had an average of 18% more CSF by volume than those who were not so diagnosed. This built on the findings of a 2013 study that covered only 55 children.

Researchers said it is not clear whether a large amount of cerebrospinal fluid actually causes autism or not. While studies have shown that cerebrospinal fluid, once thought to act solely as a cushioner and shock absorber for the brain, can influence the way neurons grow, Shen speculated that the large amount of fluid may itself be a symptom: “We believe that extra-axial CSF is an early sign that CSF is not filtering and draining when it should. The result is that there could be a buildup of neuro-inflammation that isn’t being washed [a]way.”

Currently, coauthor David Amaral said, children are not diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders until they are old enough for their behavior to change, usually at two or three years old. Researchers said these findings could be used to develop an early diagnostic system usable when the patient is as young as six months old.