You Say What?: 2017

Sunday, June 25, 2017

UK electricity grid cyber-attack risk is 'off the scale.....Energy industry says current threat coming to the fore because of trend towards decentralised power plants

Sunday 25 June 2017 12.20 EDT Last modified on Sunday 25 June 2017 17.00 EDT

Concerns over the threat posed by cyber-attacks on power stations and electricity grids is “off the scale” in the UK energy sector, according to a leading industry figure.
No other country in the world has an energy industry as worried about the risk from cyber threats, such as the WannaCry ransomware attack that recently hit the NHS, the former chief of National Grid told the Guardian.

Theresa May’s crackdown on the internet will let terror in the backdoor

There were also a growing number of web-connected devices in energy technology, he added.
One obvious target is the smart meters that are being installed in every home by the end of 2020, to automate meter readings. The Capita-run body set up to handle the data, the DCC, is being treated as critical national infrastructure and the company’s chief technology officer insists the data is safe.
“We don’t hold personal information [on energy supplier customers], we don’t see any form of sensitive data and we are not connected to the internet,” Matt Roderick told a recent industry conference. Holliday’s warning comes as the UK parliament reels from a “sustained and determined” cyber-attack which left MPs unable to access their emails.
Industry trade body Energy UK said there was a central system for logging threats, to help rapidly counter them. “Maintaining the highest level of security against cyber threats is a top priority for the industry,” a spokeswoman said.

Security experts from the National Cyber Security Centre and companies including Siemens also recently attended a summit on cybersecurity and energy infrastructure, hosted by Energy UK and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The issue is not just a concern for the power sector, but for oil and gas producers too. BP said recently that “we are a target for this activity” when asked by shareholders about how seriously it was taking cybersecurity.
“Cyber is high on the agenda. It is one of the key risks the company identifies,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, chairman at BP. “We were not affected luckily by this [Wannacry] attack, primarily because everybody had followed procedures of continuous updates.”

Brian Gilvary, chief financial officer at BP, said the firm did not share specific information on the number of attacks it faced. However, he said the company had a strategy of repelling what it could, detecting what got through and then cleansing when cyber-attackers had breached defences.
The World Energy Council, a global network of energy leaders, said cybersecurity in the energy sector had been high on the agenda of a security conference in Munich earlier this year. The issue was also raised in May by the Scottish parliament.

PricewaterhouseCoopers recently found that 65% of UK businesses were “significantly concerned” over cyber risks to energy technology. Three in five businesses would switch energy supplier if they suffered a cyber breach, according to a survey of 500 businesses by the professional services firm.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Girl Pleads With Mother After Castile Killing: 'I Don't Want You to Get Shooted!'

NBC News

The terrified four-year-old witness to the killing of Philando Castile by a Minnesota cop pleaded with her mother to cooperate with police moments after his death telling her "I don't want you to get shooted," a newly released police video shows.

The video, which came out with a bundle of evidence from the Castile trial, captures the interaction between Diamond Reynolds, Castile's girlfriend, and her daughter as they were held in the back of a squad car shortly after the shooting.

In the heart-wrenching video, a handcuffed Reynolds yells "F---!" — and immediately her young daughter begins to cry begging her mother to "please stop cussing and screaming because I don't want you to get shooted."

The weeping girl then embraces her mother, who tells her to give her a kiss.
"I can keep you safe," says the girl, while wiping away tears from her face.
Related: Authorities Release Police Dashcam Video of Philando Castile Killing
"I can't believe they just did that," Reynolds whispers to herself — to which the girl begins to cry uncontrollably.

Reynolds then attempts to get out of her handcuffs, and the girl again desperately yells for her to be calm, out of fear for her mother's safety.
"No! Please no! I don't want you to get shooted!" she said.
"They're not going to shoot me, I'm already in handcuffs," Reynolds responds in an attempt to pacify the frazzled girl.

The emotional video shines new light on the tragic aftermath of Castile's tragic shooting by Officer Jeronimo Yanez who fired seven bullets into him after he told the officer he had a firearm.
Yanez told investigators and a jury that he believed Castile was reaching for the weapon.
But Reynolds, who live streamed the immediate moments after her boyfriend was shot on Facebook, told authorities that he was only reaching for his wallet.
Police Officer Fatally Shoots Black Man During Traffic Stop Near St. Paul

© Diamond Reynolds, holding her daughter, speaks to a crowd outside the Governor's Mansion on July 7, ... Police Officer Fatally Shoots Black Man During Traffic Stop Near St. Paul She is also heard saying "he's not pulling it out!" in the police dashcam video seconds before the gunfire.

Yanez was acquitted by a jury on charges of manslaughter and dangerous discharge of a firearm — sparking outrage in the community as well as with civil rights organizations across the nation.
Reynolds testified during the trial that she recorded the encounter out of fear for her own life.
"Because I know that the people are not protected by police," Reynolds said, according to NBC Minneapolis affiliate KARE. "I wanted to make sure if I was to die in front of my daughter, someone would know the truth."

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

It’s June. California Is Still Covered in Snow

Climate Central

In this photo taken Tuesday, June 6, 2017, Caltrans maintenance worker Paul Jensen removes snow and dirt that is clogging the rotary blower he is operating to clear snow from Highway 120 near near Yosemite National… The summer solstice is just around the corner, but someone forgot to tell California’s snowpack.

After years of wallowing in drought, this winter walloped California’s Sierra Nevada mountains in a major, record-setting way. And while the calendar says summer, winter still has its grips on the granite spine of the Sierras.

NASA Earth Observatory released satellite imagery on Thursday that shows what a difference a year makes. Snowpack is at 170 percent of normal when averaged across the state and some areas are reporting way higher totals than that, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Alpine Meadows, located just west of Lake Tahoe, reported 288 inches of snow on the ground (no, that’s not a typo) as of early June. Deep green hues of healthy vegetation also extend down the Sierra Nevada western slope, another benefit of all that precipitation.

A storm earlier this week even dropped a few inches of fresh powder to freshen up the slopes for ski resorts that have stayed open to accommodate skiers and boarders who have been starved for snow for five years. California, you’ll may recall, was in an epic drought until this winter helped bust it in a big way.

Beyond making skiers happy, the massive amounts of snow at high elevations and rain at low elevations helped fill reservoirs that were dangerously low. In the case of the Oroville Reservoir, all the rain ended up being too much of a good thing and caused a cascade of events that nearly caused the dam holding waters back to collapse.

Only 8 percent of the state remains in comparatively mild drought. At this time last year, 84 percent of the state was in drought, including 21 percent in the worst type of drought tracked by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

But though drought seems like a distant memory looking at the snowy Sierras, Californians shouldn’t forget it. Precipitation (or lack thereof) is a key ingredient for drought, and while climate change isn’t likely to cause a shift in precipitation for the Golden State, it is likely to have an impact on another key drought ingredient: hot temperatures.

Scientists have already shown that hot years are overlapping with dry years more often and that within a few decades, any dry year will also certainly be a hot one in California. Put a few of those hot, dry years together and you’ve got yourself a recipe for another extreme California drought. That means the Golden State should enjoy the good times like 2017, but be ready for a future where drought conditions happen more often unless carbon pollution is cut.

Excessive heat to boil West, Southwest U.S.

CBS News

Danielle Nottingham 3 days ago

Summer doesn't officially start until Wednesday, but parts of the West and Southwest are already broiling in a triple-digit heat wave.

119 degrees in Furnace Creek, California, 113 in Blue Water, Arizona, 112 in Midland, Texas
It's making conditions even more dangerous for crews battling wildfires.

Temperatures in parts of California are expected to rise as high as 25 degrees above normal.
Sizzling temperatures across the region could break records. And another cause for concern -- air quality. Unhealthy to very unhealthy levels of heat-induced ozone pollution are expected in several inland communities. Excessive heat warnings extend to Nevada , parts of Utah and in Arizona, where over a dozen wildfires are burning around the state. Six firefighters had to be treated for heat-related illness while battling the highline fire in Payson. Temperatures in Phoenix are expected to reach 120 degrees.

The hottest temperatures will arrive in the Southwest Monday and last through the end of next week. In the southern California desert, highs in Death Valley could soar to 127 degrees.

Thousands dead' in DR Congo violence

BBC News

© Getty Images The UN has called for an investigation into the violence, which has left millions displaced More than 3,300 people have been killed in the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region since last October, the Catholic Church says.

The figure, reported by the Reuters news agency, is from Church sources.

The deaths are the result of clashes between the army and a rebel group, but civilians have also been caught up in the violence.

The UN has reported on the discovery of more than 20 mass graves but has put the death toll so far at about 400.

According to the church, 20 villages have been completely destroyed, half of them by government troops.

The UN Human Rights Council is likely to vote this week on whether to mandate an independent investigation into the violence following what the group's commissioner described as horrific atrocities committed in Kasai province.

The Congolese authorities have said they would reject it.
More than a million people have been displaced in the region in the last year and aid workers say the humanitarian response on the ground has so far been inadequate.

Violence erupted in the once peaceful Kasai region last August, after the death of a local leader during fighting with security forces.

Former escort found guilty of attempted hit man hire

Associated Press

1 day ago

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A former escort was convicted Friday of trying to hire a hit man to kill her newlywed husband to get control of his money and their town house in a case that was featured on the television show "Cops."

Dalia Dippolito teared up as she turned to look at her sobbing mother when the jury announced its verdict after deliberating for only an hour and a half. She faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced July 21. Judge Glenn Kelley ordered her held without bail.

Dippolito, 34 and the mother of an infant son, later began sobbing as she sat handcuffed in a corner of the courtroom as bailiffs ordered spectators out. Paramedics were called to the courthouse after she had trouble breathing, but she was later taken to jail. She had been on house arrest for several years.
Her ex-husband, convicted conman Michael Dippolito, issued a statement saying he was "5,000 percent happy" with the verdict. He was referring to a secretly videotaped statement Dalia Dippolito made to an undercover detective posing as a hit man where she said she was "5,000 percent sure" she wanted him murdered.

"The jury could see through the Defense's lies and antics," he said.
Prosecutors Craig Williams and Laura Laurie declined comment. Their boss, Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronson, issued a statement saying, "We are pleased that the hard work and perseverance of our prosecutors and staff have led to justice." The three-man, three-woman jury also left without comment.
This was the third trial for Dippolito since her arrest in August 2009. A 2011 conviction and 20-year sentence were thrown out on appeal. A 2016 trial ended with a 3-3 hung jury.

Deputy Neil Cascone holds Dalia Dippolito back as her family reaches out to her as she in taken into custody after being found guilty in her third attempted murder trial, Friday, June 16, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Fla. Dippolito, a former escort was convicted Friday of trying to hire a hit man to kill her newlywed husband to get control of his money and their town house in a case that was featured on the television show "Cops." (Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post via AP, Pool)

1/11 SLIDES © Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post via AP, Pool

Defense attorneys Brian Claypool and Craig Rosenfeld said they will appeal the verdict, saying jurors should not have heard secondhand allegations that Dippolito once tried to poison her husband."It is really hard for jurors to get beyond that and really look at the egregious police misconduct that took place," Claypool said.

The guilty verdict validated the prosecution's reversal in strategy. Last year, prosecutors focused heavily on the 23-minute video in which Dippolito tells undercover officer Widy Jean she wanted her husband killed and agreed to pay $7,000. She also discussed various plots before Jean said he would kill her husband at the couple's home, making it look like a botched burglary while she was at the gym.

This time, while the tape remained a key piece of their evidence, prosecutors went back to their 2011 strategy. They also called Michael Dippolito, who testified that his then-wife stole $100,000 from him shortly after they got married in February 2009. He also said someone twice planted drugs in his SUV and called police, which could have landed him back in prison for violating his probation. He thinks it was his wife. He has said previously he met his wife when he hired her for sex. He soon divorced another woman and married her.

According to The Palm Beach Post, prosecutors also read for the jury X-rated text messages Dalia Dippolito exchanged with a now-deceased lover, Mike Stanley, in 2009 after she got married.
She had Stanley impersonate a doctor, to help her hide the $100,000 theft, and later a lawyer, to make her husband wrongly think he had completed probation, prosecutors said, adding that she hoped that if her husband stopped visiting his probation officer, he would be found in violation. In one text message, she rejoiced after persuading her husband to put their town house in her name only; in another, she complained after learning she still couldn't sell it without his signature.

Prosecutors also showed video of her interview with detectives at the police station after being made to believe her husband had been killed. She volunteered potential killers, including her husband's former crime partners, and denied knowing Jean when he was brought before her in handcuffs as the killer.

Claypool and Rosenfeld struck hard at the investigation, accusing the Boynton Beach police of playing to the "Cops" cameras in hopes of becoming famous, rather than doing a professional and thorough investigation. They criticized the department for posting on YouTube minutes after her arrest video of Dippolito being told falsely her husband was dead.

Former Boynton Beach Sgt. Frank Ranzie testified for the defense, saying that as a detective on the case, he had opposed "Cops" filming the investigation because cameras make people, including police officers, behave differently.

He also said his supervisors refused to delay a key meeting between Dippolito and their confidential informant, her sometimes-lover Mohammed Shihadeh, minutes before her rendezvous with Jean when Shihadeh's recording device failed. He called that a major gap in the investigation.

Study reveals "staggering" toll of guns on U.S. kids

CBS News

Mary Brophy Marcus 1 day ago

© Provided by CBS Interactive Inc.The tragic headlines are all too common: A toddler got his hands on his mother's gun and fatally shot his 2-year-old brother in Colorado earlier this month. Two girls caught in the crossfire were wounded in a shooting during a picnic at a Chicago elementary school on Friday. And out of the glare of the headlines, more teens took their own lives.
Now a new report gives the most complete picture yet of the grim toll gunfire takes on American children every year.

Overall, nearly 1,300 children in the U.S. die in shootings each year and another 5,790 survive gunshot wounds -- from handguns, rifles and shotguns -- according to the study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

The tally makes gunshot wounds the third leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 17 years.
For the report, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data on injuries and deaths from gunfire in kids ages 0 to 17, compiling information from three national databases that track details such as nonfatal firearm injuries reported by hospital emergency rooms, death certificates connected to gun violence, coroner and medical examiner records, law enforcement reports, as well as details on homicides, assaults, suicides/self-harm, or unintentional injuries linked to guns. They also examined sex, age, race/ethnicity and year of death.
Watch: Chicago kids tell their stories: "Will I live the rest of my life?"
"About 19 children a day die or are medically treated in an emergency department for a gunshot wound in the U.S.," study author Katherine Fowler, a behavioral scientist at the CDC, told CBS News.

More than half (53 percent) of deaths due to guns among children were homicides, she said. More than a third (38 percent) were suicides. Six percent were unintentional shooting deaths.
Boys are especially vulnerable to gun violence, accounting for 82 percent of all child firearm deaths and 84 percent of all non-fatal gun injuries.

"The majority of these children are boys, 13 to 17 years old, and African-American in the case of firearm homicide, and non-Hispanic white and American Indian/Alaska Native in the case of firearm suicide," Fowler said.

African-American children have the highest rates of firearm mortality overall -- 10 times higher than the rate for non-Hispanic white and Asian-American children, according to the report.
When it comes to suicide by gun, rates among young people have climbed significantly since 2007, rising 60 percent, the study found.

In about a third of those cases, the child suffered from a depressed mood, and about a quarter had a clinically diagnosed mental health problem. Twenty-six percent told someone in advance of their intent to die by suicide.

© istockphoto istock-464884181.jpg Death by gun: Top 20 states with highest rates
Other research has found that suicides involving either handguns or long guns are especially prevalent in rural areas.

"The current report's analyses confirm that suicides often occur in response to short-term crises. The availability of a firearm may be especially critical for an impulsive teenager in such moments of crisis," Dr. Eliot W. Nelson of the University of Vermont Children's Hospital, in Burlington, Vermont, wrote in an accompanying editorial in Pediatrics entitled "Confronting the Firearm Injury Plague."
While there have been previous studies on firearm injuries and deaths in children, this report is "the most comprehensive" to date, Fowler said. "It examines overall patterns of firearm-related death and injury, patterns by type of firearm injury -- interpersonal, self-directed, and unintentional -- trends over time, state-level patterns, and circumstances surrounding these deaths."
Dr. Ruth Abaya, assistant professor of pediatrics in the division of Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS News, "The findings were staggering."
But, she added, "Unfortunately, not surprising. Their numbers verified a lot of observations we've seen in regards to gun violence, gun death and unintentional injury to children over the years. It was very telling."

How U.S. gun deaths compare to other countries Many kids spend time in homes with guns, but safety lags

The findings suggest that community-wide initiatives are needed to address the problem, she said.
"I think that the take-home for me is that we're going to need a multi-pronged approach to gun violence prevention in this country for it to be affective," Abaya said.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a violence prevention initiative that includes better access to health care -- including mental health care – for children at risk, as well as an anti-bullying program, and screening for mental health issues and firearm access when children come to the emergency room and pediatrician offices.

Although gun-related death rates for children declined gradually between 2006 and 2013, they have risen again over the past two years. Guns accounted for over 10 percent of all deaths among children 17 and younger in 2014 and 2015, Nelson pointed out in the editorial.
Watch: Report: Road rage involving guns on the rise

"An even grimmer picture appears if we extend the age range through the teenage years to age 19, because firearm injury rates rise steeply in late adolescence," he wrote.
And for those who survive, the physical and mental toll may be felt for a lifetime.
"By including a focus on nonfatal firearm injuries treated in emergency rooms, the authors also remind us of the fuller scope of these injuries and the toll they exact," Nelson wrote.
As for possible solutions to the problem, Dr. David Wesson, a pediatric surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital, told CBS News, "This paper gives us areas we can focus our energy on."
Because "firearm injuries are fraught with political overtones," this can be a difficult topic to address, but he suggested that promoting gun safety laws and more widespread use of secure gun storage devices are a few possible approaches.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends doctors ask parents whether they keep a gun in the home, and Nelson agreed that pediatricians "do need to try to engage those gun owners."
"We should be mindful that this message may be off-putting to parents who keep guns for hunting or self-protection, and who are part of a widespread and deeply rooted social gun culture in our country, especially in rural states," he wrote. "Our message on safe gun storage in homes with children is similar to that of gun rights and sport shooting groups.‍"

But, Wesson said, "The more guns there are, the more people die of gunshot injuries."
Fowler, the report author, said that understanding the nature, magnitude and health impact of firearm violence against children is an important first step to finding ways to prevent injuries and deaths of children from firearms. Street outreach and school-based programs, finding ways to address poverty and violence, screening for depression in children, and promoting safe gun storage education to owners are some of the ways communities can begin to address the issue.
The bottom line: "Firearm injuries are preventable," she said.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Thousands dropped from food stamps due to work requirements

By Craig Schneider - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Posted: 3:12 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Thousands of Georgians have lost their food stamps after the state gave them an ultimatum: Get a job or lose your benefits. Is that good news or bad news? Depends who you talk to. Placing work requirements on food stamps has proven controversial across the country, with opinions often divided along political lines. Georgia has been rolling out work requirements for food stamp recipients for over a year. The latest round affected some 12,000 people in 21 counties, several in metro Atlanta, who are considered able-bodied without children.

When the April 1 deadline came around for them to find work, more than half — 7,251 — were dropped from the program, according to state figures released this week. Essentially, the number of recipients spiraled down from 11,779 to 4,528, or a drop of 62 percent. Views on the work mandate vary widely, and intensely. People on the political right see the requirement as a nudge to those who languish on public benefits. But those on the left believe many people who the state deems able-bodied really cannot hold a job due to physical or mental limitations. And they worry these people will suffer without the assistance.
State officials say they plan to expand the work requirements to all 159 counties by 2019, with another 60 coming on board next year.

Bobby Cagle, director of the state Division of Family and Children Services, has said, “The greater good is people being employed, being productive and contributing to the state.”
The two political sides differ even in their view of the people in this category, who the state identifies as able-bodied adults without dependents or ABAWDs.
Brandon Hanick of the progressive activist group Better Georgia believes this population is filled with people with mental health impairments, limited education and borderline physical handicaps. They often lack the wherewithal to prove to a state bureaucracy their inability to meet the work requirements, he said. “It’s cruel,” Hanick said of the work requirements. “We’re talking about one of the most basic needs — the need for food.”

But state Rep. Greg Morris, a Republican from Vidalia, said the precipitous drop in recipients shows the mandate is working. He believes many of these food stamp recipients have become complacent, if not lazy, about finding a job. “This is about protecting taxpayer dollars from abuse, and taking people off the cycle of dependency,” Morris said. The big drop in numbers, he added, “shows how tax dollars are abused when it comes to entitlements.” Food stamps come from federal dollars, but the program here is managed by DFCS. Some 1.6 million Georgians receive food stamps. The number of food stamp recipients deemed able-bodied and without children in Georgia has dropped from 111,000 to 89,500 in a year’s time. That is an uncommon reduction of 21,500 people or 19 percent. Officials say they have no firm reason for the sharp decrease, though they suspect a statewide review of this population may have played a role.

The state began implementing the work requirements in 2016 with Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall counties. The state gave recipients there three months to find a job or training program or lose their benefits. A year later, the number of able-bodied, childless adults in those counties diminished 75 percent from 6,102 to 1,490, according to DFCS figures. The state selects counties with relatively low unemployment rates for the work requirements. But state officials acknowledge the system initially had a problem in classifying who is able-bodied. They discovered that hundreds of people who the state had classified as able-bodied in Cobb, Gwinnett and Hall were actually unable to work. Some lost their food stamps when the work requirements began. Staff have since received additional training.

Georgia’s expansion of the work requirements comes as conservatives nationally push for more welfare-to-work initiatives. All but a handful of states employ work requirements. The mandate is a federal policy, implemented during the welfare reform of the nineties but put on hold during the Great Recession. President Donald Trump’s new budget plan proposed to cut $192 billion from food stamps over a decade. What happens to the people dropped from food stamps? The agency does not track individuals once they leave the program. Officials noted that some may have been reclassified as handicapped. They would still be receiving food stamps but not be required to work. Others may have obtained jobs.

Here again, views on what happens to these people often splits along political affiliations.
Benita Dodd, vice president of the fiscally conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, said she believes the work mandate is pushing many into jobs. “It does show that if you give people an incentive to help themselves, they can become productive citizens,” she said.
But Melissa Johnson, a senior policy analyst with the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, has more dire concerns. Food stamps, often the first government assistance sought by people in hard times, are “such a meager benefit,” she said, adding that the average benefit is $129 a month in Georgia. “I believe these time limits are harmful, and they are likely to lead to more hunger and hardship,” Johnson said.

DFCS officials say they have repeatedly reached out to these recipients, offering them help with job searches and training. The agency has a $505,706 contract with Goodwill of North Georgia to help people get training and connections to employers.
“The agency has many services to offer (them), but many have chosen not to respond to multiple notices,” said DFCS spokeswoman Mary Beth Lukich.

April 1 was their deadline for finding work.
January 2017 — 11,779
February — 11,419
March — 11,356
April — 4,528

Entire Indiana Police Department Quits After “Being Told To Do Illegal, Unethical, and Immoral Things”

Activism Alternative News

May 20, 2017May 20, 2017 manurishi

(countercurrentnews) Entire Indiana Police Department Quits After “Being Told To Do Illegal, Unethical, and Immoral Things”

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – An entire Indiana town has no police officers after every single one walked off the job. The officers blame the Bunker Hill Town Council for the situation.

“We have had issues with the town board and there are some activities there where I felt like they were serving their own agenda,” said former Bunker Hill Town Marshall Michael Thomison.

Thomison served as Town Marshall for four years until Monday night when he and four other officers handed over resignation letters to the council, telling them they have had enough.

“They would not communicate with us or the officers and they kept scaling back,” said Thomison.

In their resignation letters, the officers accuse council members of asking them to “do illegal, unethical, and immoral things.”

They cited examples like asking police to run background checks on other town councilors to find their criminal history. The officers also claim they were threatened when they said no.

Another issue they brought up in the letter was their safety. The officers say they were all forced to share one set of body armor, putting their lives on the line while they were out making arrests and serving warrants.

“I did not want to send someone out there with bad body armor so I would take mine off and provide it to the other officers.

I told them we have to provide this, there is an IC code that explains that and says that the town has to provide that body armor,” said Thomison.

On top of all that, Thomison says his resignation was personal. He was diagnosed with cancer last year, but when he was ready to go back to work in May, Thomison says they would only allow him to work part time. He blames the town councilors and plans to file a lawsuit against them.

“They came at me and said it is costing the town way too much money because of my insurance and they said we are taking you down to part time,” said Thomison.

Thomison and the other officers say they did not want to step down, but feel they had to. For now, the town is relying on outside help as they search for new officers.

“I know that they are scrambling and have contacted some other officers that do not want the position,” said Thomison.

Town Council President Brock Speer says they will release a statement in the near future.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – An entire Indiana town has no police officers after every single one walked off the job. The officers blame the Bunker Hill Town Council for the situation.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Anti-Muslim Extremist Is Training Police In Arizona

Thursday, May 4, 2017

http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/sweet-obama-center-design-is-splashy-with-welcoming-streetscape/amp/

Sweet: Obama Center Design is Splashy With Welcoming Streetscape by Lynn Sweet

This conceptual drawing released Wednesday, May 3, 2017, by the Obama Foundation shows plans for the proposed Obama Presidential Center that will be located in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side. This view looks from the south with a public plaza that extends into the landscape. The Museum is the tall structure on the site. | Obama Foundation via AP

Over time, the South Side neighborhood and park now named for the seventh president of the U.S., Andrew Jackson, will become better known as Obamaland, anchored by the Obama Presidential Center campus, conceived by the 44th president as a busy hub with space for people to gather, whether from across the globe or around the corner.

Former President Barack Obama unveiled the conceptual plans of his Obama Center at a Wednesday afternoon event engineered to address local concerns that have been long brewing, from planting his center in a historic Frederick Law Olmsted park, to guarantees that jobs and contracts from the project will flow to minorities, to what he will do about crime.
“We are going to be continually in conversations with the community about how we are going to be able to make this work for you,” Obama said at the start of his almost one-hour briefing about the project at the South Shore Cultural Center.
Obama lugged around a five-by-five model of his Obama Center campus on his day trip back to his adopted hometown, first to South Shore for the public event and then downtown to a private dinner hosted by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, where he showed off the design to an audience of potential donors.

OPINION

We finally know what Obama and former first lady Michelle have in mind for the design of their Center, the first urban presidential compound.
Think of it as an architecturally significant clubhouse complex, where people can hang out, inside or outside, maybe sample a program — or maybe not.
The siting of the campus along Stony Island Avenue is crucial, creating a non-imposing accessible streetscape with many points of entry for people, whether to wander by or come with a purpose.
There will be three main structures in the Obama Center: a brawny high-rise to be the iconic landmark “lantern,” housing a museum and offices, and likely an apartment for the Obamas; a multi-use forum for performances and meetings, and a library.

Above ground, the structures will be woven together with plazas and paths leading people to and from the nearby Museum of Science and Industry, one of Chicago’s leading tourist attractions.
The skins of the structures are to be of stone and glass, but the specific stone or its hew has not yet been revealed.
The boxy museum building looks somewhat like an Apple power adapter, with the glass running down the south face the prongs.
The buildings reflect the Obamas.
Splashy. Tasteful. Sleek. Modern. And certainly not a display of the architect’s vanity.

It is architecture that relates to the adventurous buildings spawned in the last decade on the University of Chicago campus to the west.

The chief architects are the New York husband and wife team of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, whose chemistry with the Obamas was a significant factor in their selection last year.
But on Wednesday, at the first event where Obama discussed his legacy project with the community, he was on stage with Obama Foundation Vice President for Civic Engagement Michael Strautmanis and the local architect on the design team, Dina Griffin, a Hyde Park resident.

Architect Dina Griffin listens to former President Barack Obama speak about the progress of the Obama Presidential Center during a community event at the South Shore Cultural Center on Wednesday, May 3, 2017, in Chicago. | Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images

Also on Wednesday, the Obama Foundation and the National Archives and Records Administration announced a deal — the first of its kind — in which the Foundation will fund the digitization of Obama’s unclassified records. NARA will retain custody of the original paper records, to be stored at another location. Classified records will remain in the Washington, D.C. area.

Obama announced at the South Shore event that the former first couple will donate $2 million to Chicago summer jobs programs. The timing is interesting. That news comes as Obama has been criticized — including by consumer champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — for raking in $400,000 speaking fees on top of a reported $60 million book deal for memoirs the Obamas’ will each write.
The Obama donation will go to two organizations: $1 million to the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance, a program of the Chicago Community Trust, and $1 million to One Summer Chicago 2017, a program run in part out of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Hall.
Obama confirmed something that everyone long suspected: Despite a bidding competition, the presidential thumb was on the scale from the start for the University of Chicago’s push for a South Side location.
“Although we had a formal bidding process to determine where the presidential library was going to be, the fact of the matter was it had to be right here on the South Side of Chicago,” Obama said.

In a part of the city that one day will be called Obamaland.