bananas
bananas's JournalDocuments In Trump University Case Unsealed in San Diego
Source: NBC 7 San Diego
The class-action lawsuit involving Trump University is scheduled to be heard in November 2016 in San Diego federal court.
Several playbooks used by Trump University were released to the public Tuesday and detail how much students paid to attend the now-closed school.
The Washington Post asked U.S. Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel to intervene in order to ask for thousands of pages of documents to be unsealed in one of the class-action lawsuits against Donald Trump and Trump University. The judge agreed issued the unsealing Friday in a San Diego courtroom.
In the class action lawsuits, Trump University is accused of misleading students with unfulfilled promises of teaching them the secret to being successful in the real estate business.
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Read more: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Documents-In-Trump-University-Case-Unsealed-San-Diego-381415021.html
Barrio Logan residents complain about 'martial law' during Trump protest
Source: KGTV
SAN DIEGO - Community leaders Tuesday decried what they described as a decision by city leaders "to effectively put Barrio Logan under martial law" last week during a Donald Trump campaign rally at the Convention Center.
During a late-morning news conference in the bayside neighborhood, the group of activists voiced their complaints about the heavy paramilitary-style law enforcement presence at the Friday afternoon campaign event, during which 35 protesters were arrested, including city attorney candidate Bryan Pease.
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Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego, urged anyone who felt harassed or otherwise victimized by police conduct during the rally to have their stories documented with the American Civil Liberties Union.
"San Diegans demand that Mayor Faulconer and Chief Zimmerman account for their actions that created unnecessary tension and arrests in Barrio Logan," Rios said. "The use of small tanks and riot police against San Diego residents has no place in America's Finest City."
Ricardo Favela of Alliance San Diego said the area was turned into a militarized zone, threatening residents and scaring families.
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"Law enforcement officials dressed in riot gear with armored vehicles behind them, marched in a wall of force that stretched the width of Harbor Drive, pushing a small number of protesters from downtown San Diego into the residential area of Barrio Logan, over a mile away," Favela said.
"Once in Barrio Logan, the community was surrounded by SDPD squad cars with lights flashing, corralling people in the neighborhood," he said. "The mayor's and chief's decision to effectively put Barrio Logan under martial law is irresponsible and violates the community's trust."
Read more: http://www.10news.com/news/barrio-logan-residents-complain-about-martial-law-during-trump-protest
Broadband ISPs, CableCos Still Least Liked of Any US Industry (tied with healthcare providers)
"TV service and Internet service providers tied with healthcare providers for the lowest average ratings in any industry."
Broadband ISPs, CableCos Still Least Liked of Any US Industry
by Karl Bode
Wednesday May 25 2016 18:30 EDT
A survey of 10,000 consumers has found that broadband ISPs and cable companies continue to have the worst customer satisfaction ratings of any industry in the United States -- despite countless, breathless claims by cable executives that things are improving. According to the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, TV service and Internet service providers tied with healthcare providers for the lowest average ratings in any industry.
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"The poster child for poor customer experience in these industries—Comcast—was not only the lowest-scoring TV service and Internet service provider, but was also one of the lowest-scoring companies in the entire Ratings," states the report. "It ranked 289th overall out of 294 companies for its TV service and ranked 284th overall for its Internet service."
It's worth noting that no company in the cable or broadband industries received anything higher than a "poor" rating. But among the best of the bad, DirecTV earned the highest score for the TV service industry with a rating of 57% and an overall rank of 182nd.
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NASA TV live broadcast inflation of Bigelow module Thursday
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/22824/20160524/nasa-to-expand-beam-the-first-inflatable-habitat-docked-on-the-iss.htmMagic mushrooms lift severe depression in clinical trial
Source: Guardian
Magic mushrooms have lifted severe depression in a dozen volunteers in a clinical trial, raising scientists’ hopes that the psychedelic experiences beloved of the Aztecs and the hippy counter-culture of the 1970s could one day become mainstream medicine.
A clinical trial, which took years and significant money to complete due to the stringent regulatory restrictions imposed around the class 1 drug, has found that two doses of psilocybin, the active substance in the mushrooms, was sufficient to lift resistant depression in all 12 volunteers for three weeks, and to keep it away in five of them for three months.
The size of the trial and the absence of any placebo means the research, funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal (pdf), is a proof of principle only.
The scientists, from Imperial College London, said they hoped the results would encourage the MRC or other funders to put up the money needed for a full trial. However, the use of a placebo control, comparing those who use the drug with those who do not, will always be difficult, because it will be obvious who is having a psychedelic experience.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/17/magic-mushrooms-lift-severe-depression-in-clinical-trial
Astronomical software accurately dates 2,500-year-old lyric poem
Source: Astronomy Now
A computer simulation of the sky over the island of Lesbos, Greece, soon after astronomical dusk during the third week of January 570 BC. The 6-day-old waxing crescent Moon lies in the constellation of Taurus forming a triangle with first-magnitude star Aldebaran and the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades open star cluster. Physicists and astronomers from the University of Texas at Arlington believe that this sky scene, or one of a few nights later, to have inspired Sappho’s “Midnight Poem.” AN graphic by Ade Ashford.
Physicists and astronomers from the University of Texas at Arlington have used advanced astronomical software to accurately date lyric poet Sappho’s “Midnight Poem,” which describes the night sky over Greece more than 2,500 years ago.
The scientists described their research in the article “Seasonal Dating of Sappho’s ‘Midnight Poem’ Revisited,” just published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage. Martin George, former president of the International Planetarium Society, now at the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, also participated in the work.
“This is an example of where the scientific community can make a contribution to knowledge described in important ancient texts, ” said Manfred Cuntz, physics professor and lead author of the study. “Estimations had been made for the timing of this poem in the past, but we were able to scientifically confirm the season that corresponds to her specific descriptions of the night sky in the year 570 B.C.”
Sappho’s “Midnight Poem” describes the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation of Taurus having set at around midnight, when supposedly observed by her from the Greek island of Lesbos:
Cuntz and co-author and astronomer Levent Gurdemir, director of the planetarium at UTA, used astronomical software called Starry Night version 7.3, to identify the earliest date that the Pleiades would have set at midnight or earlier in local time in 570 B.C. The planetarium system Digistar 5 also allows creating the night sky of ancient Greece for Sappho’s place and time.
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Read more: https://astronomynow.com/2016/05/15/astronomical-software-accurately-dates-2500-year-old-lyric-poem/
Nasa's Juno spacecraft becomes 'fastest object ever made' during mission to Jupiter
Source: International Business Times
Nasa's Juno spacecraft has become the fastest object ever made by humanity after clocking in speeds of over 160,000mph during its five-year voyage to Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system. Next month, on 4 July, the Juno probe will decelerate in orbit around the gas giant to probe a rich atmosphere that is thousands of times thicker than Earth's, in order to find out more about the mysterious planet.
Launched in 2011, Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft that is made to operate at such a great distance from the Sun. According to Nasa, the four-tonne probe carries three 30ft (9m) solar arrays and nearly 20,000 individual solar cells to power it during its journey.
Nasa says the goal of the mission is to "understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for a solid planetary core, map its magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere and observe its auroras".
Chris Lintott, professor of astrophysics at Oxford University and presenter of the BBC's The Sky at Night programme, told The Sunday Times: "Juno's mission is to help us understand how Jupiter formed and thus what happened in the early days of the solar system 4.5bn years ago. For example, pinning down the amount of water in the atmosphere might show whether Jupiter began life as a rocky planet like Earth, or collapsed directly [from a cloud of gas], rather like a star."
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Read more: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasas-juno-spacecraft-becomes-fastest-object-ever-made-during-mission-jupiter-1560157
"Next month" is actually a month and a half away.
Verizon Strike Escalates With Armed Confrontation in the Philippines
Source: Fortune
Tim Dubnau knew that helping lead a strike of almost 40,000 workers against Verizon Communications was going to be tough. But he had no idea that he would find himself, as he did on Wednesday, crammed in the back of an unmarked white van, terrified, being chased through the streets of Alabang, a city on the outskirts of Manila, by a group of armed men on motorcycles.
And the situation only got more tense when the men surrounded the van, forcing it to pull over, and called in a SWAT team of heavily armed Philippine police officers.
“It was like being in a movie–they were dressed all in black with masks and automatic rifles,” Dubnau recalled in an interview with Fortune. “At first they were demanding that we get out. One officer even hit the door with his gun. But we didn’t open up, we knew our rights.”
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Read more: http://fortune.com/2016/05/12/verizon-strike-armed-confrontation-philippines/
Union officials, SWAT police face off in Philippines amid ongoing Verizon labor dispute
Source: UPI
An ongoing labor dispute between Verizon and almost 40,000 workers nearly led to violence in the Philippines this week, where armed police and advocates for striking workers suddenly found themselves in a confrontation.
The escalation happened Thursday in the Pacific island nation, where Verizon operates call centers. The dispute, which has been going on for a month, involves two labor unions concerned about job outsourcing and low wages.
Thursday, members of the Communications Workers of America were confronted by police after visiting Verizon offices in the Philippines, where the union reps said they hoped to gauge the extent of the company's call center job outsourcing.
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According to the union members, and video taken of the confrontation, they were chased off by private security forces and even armed police -- who appeared to be tactical officers carrying automatic weapons -- who pursued their van through the streets of Alabang and ultimately stopped them for questioning, guns drawn.
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Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/05/13/Union-officials-armed-police-face-off-in-Philippines-amid-ongoing-Verizon-labor-dispute/7291463160414/
CWA union says it faced “SWAT team armed with automatic weapons” after uncovering “massive Verizon o
Source: Salon
CWA union says it faced “SWAT team armed with automatic weapons” after uncovering “massive Verizon offshoring operation in Philippines”
Photos and videos show what union reps say are armed police and a SWAT team "intimidating" them in the Philippines
The union that is on strike against corporate telecommunications giant Verizon alleges that its representatives were confronted by a heavily armed “SWAT team” in the Philippines, where it says it discovered undeclared offshore operations. Verizon strongly denies the accusations.
Chris Shelton, president of Communications Workers of America, or CWA, says his union was contacted by call center workers in the Philippines who work for Verizon. CWA says it sent four representatives to the Philippines this week, where they “discovered that the extent to which Verizon is offshoring work is far beyond what has previously been reported and what the company publicly has acknowledged.”
CWA alleges that Verizon is offshoring U.S. customer service calls to centers in the Philippines, where workers are paid as little as $1.78 an hour. The union says that Filipino workers told it they are being forced to work overtime an extra one to two hours each day, along with another full eight-hour sixth day, and are not receiving additional overtime compensation.
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“Terrified that the public might find out about what has happened to the good middle-class jobs the company has shipped overseas, Verizon sent private armed security forces after peaceful CWA representatives and called in a SWAT team armed with automatic weapons,” the union wrote in a statement.
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Read more: https://www.salon.com/2016/05/13/cwa_union_says_it_faced_swat_team_armed_with_automatic_weapons_after_uncovering_massive_verizon_offshoring_operation_in_philippines/
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