Two elementary schools were destroyed in the EF-5 twister that killed at least 24 people on Monday and injured hundreds of others. Seven children were found dead in the debris of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla.Authorities believe that everyone who was at Briarwood Elementary School survived the deadly tornado, which ravaged the building with 200 mph winds.“You could just feel the pressure just building like you were in an airplane, just the pressurization of the cabin and your ears popping and the debris starts flying and the roof falling in,” Briarwood’s first-grade teacher Sheri Bittle told ABC. “And everything in your classroom falling in on you.”Both of the destroyed schools lacked tornado shelters, which would have potentially prevented many of the casualties and fatalities that occurred on May 20. More than 100 Oklahoma schools currently have metal safe rooms, which can be built above ground or underground and sustain winds up to 250 mph.These rooms may be the difference between life and death in states where the tornado risk is high, but lack of funding to build them has prevented elementary schools like Plaza Towers and Briarwood from constructing shelters of their own.Retrofitting a school with a safe room shelter costs an estimated $600,000 to $1 million per building, Bloomberg News reports. Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency, told the news agency that his department can’t afford to provide every school with a shelter, but that he is looking into whether the two schools had ever even applied for federal funding to build safe rooms.“You have a limited amount of funds,” he said. “You set priorities. It’s not a matter of they were being left out.”But Oklahoma residents refer to Moore as “Tornado Alley”, since the area has been struck by devastating twisters more than any other region in the US. In May 1999, a tornado took a similar path, ravaging Moore, killing 41 people, and costing the US $1 billion in damages.Some residents believe that safe rooms should be a priority in Oklahoma – particularly in Moore, since it has a history of falling victim to tornadoes.“If they can afford a $5 million football stadium, they can afford a safe room,” 67-year-old John Lemmon, a Moore resident who lives near Plaza Towers Elementary School, told Bloomberg. “They should have done it right after they had the last big one.”While both elementary schools were reduced to rubble, students at Plaza Towers Elementary School were worse off. This traditional school building was constructed with a long line of classrooms that were all under a single roof. When the tornado caused the building to crumble, students were trapped in the wreckage of the structure, and at least seven of them died. Briarwood Elementary School was divided into four sections, with several classrooms in each pod. Between these pods were openings that led students outside, which allowed students to escape the collapsing walls and ceilings.No children died at Briarwood as they escaped the falling debris with backpacks over their heads. But both schools could have ensured the safety of their students if they had metal safe rooms to retreat into during natural disasters.Now that children have died in the May 20 twister that ravaged Moore, Okla., the Federal Emergency Management Agency may reconsider providing the funding for safe rooms. The city of Moore has long been trying to acquire funds to buy them, and the city in February wrote on its website that FEMA requirements have held them back.“If you don’t have disasters, you don’t have additional money for mitigation for safe rooms, but without disasters there’s not a set funding source just for safe rooms,” FEMA director Craig Fugate told ABC, indicating that changes may only occur when it’s too late to reverse the damage. … Read More
‘Press freedom eroding’: DOJ slammed for search warrant against ‘spying’ Fox reporter
James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, had a 44-page application for a search warrant filed against him, including for his personal emails, after publishing a report based on leaked security information in June 2009. The report revealed North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test despite the US imposition of sanctions on the country.The US Department of Justice (DOJ) described Rosen “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” The accusation appears in a court affidavit first reported by the Washington Post on Monday.The officials digging up the case were revealed to have been tracking the journalist’s trips to and from the State Department as well as monitoring his communications, as a search warrant was obtained for the reporter’s personal e-mails.Rosen’s case has been linked with charges filed previously against a security adviser with the US State Department Stephen Jin-woo Kim for his role in leaking the classified information that appeared in the article. The search warrant application also revealed that investigators catalogued the number of times the password and profile affiliated with Kim had accessed intelligence reports.The investigation into Rosen was described as “downright chilling” by Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente in a statement. He added the company was “outraged” to learn that he had been named a criminal co-conspirator for “simply doing his job as a reporter.”“We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press,” Clemente said.The scandal comes on the heels of the exposure of a US government investigation into the Associated Press, in which it was acknowledged that over the course of two months, over 20 phone lines of journalists were tapped, prompting AP President Gary Pruitt to call the ongoing monitoring a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”The AP believes that overall, more than 100 journalists are under the DOJ’s phone surveillance, which would have involved a wide variety of stories regarding government and other topics.The Obama administration’s crackdown on journalists has roused concern across the media. “The government is obviously stepping way outside of that balance. You’re talking about reporting news information that is critical for an informed populace,” Wide Awake News founder Charlie McGrath told RT.“Yes, there’s going to be things that can’t be reported; that shouldn’t be leaked. But you’re going to go after the journalist who’s doing his job, and not the ineffective dysfunctional government that leaked the info in the first place,” he continued.McGrath went on to predict that eventually news would be composed solely of government press releases, adding that inside sources are already very much less inclined to share any real information with the press.The crackdown is intended to “scare… anybody who dares to stand up to the party line, to the agenda line. And this isn’t just the Obama administration. It was the previous administration, and it will be the next administration it’s out of control government. It’s hubris at its worst. And it’s going continue to erode the freedom of this country,” McGrath concluded. … Read More
Senate Panel Approves Even More Stringent Biometric Measures
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. … Read More
US claims Chinese military is on new cyber offensive against America
According to the New York Times, computer security experts and US officials alike say the PLA’s sophisticated cyber squadron is attempting to hack American businesses after a brief hiatus.Earlier this year, the Times cited a report by Northern Virginia security firm Mandiant when they alleged that Chinese hackers targeted businesses and government agencies inside the US, as well as a Canadian utility company and others. Mandiant said in the February report that the PLA “Unit 61398” group compromised 141 companies across 20 major industries during the last few years, infecting the computers at Coca-Cola, the Canadian arm of Telvent and others.Earlier this month, the US Department of Defense threw its weight behind Mandiant’s claims, and for the first time ever the administration of President Barack Obama accused China of cybercrimes.“In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the US government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” the Pentagon wrote.Now, the chief executive at Mandiant and a number of US officials admit that China relaxed its campaign after the February report was published — only to have already returned to its hacking ways weeks later.“They dialed it back for a little while, though other groups that also wear uniforms didn’t even bother to do that,” CEO Kevin Mandia told the Times on Friday. “I think you have to view this as the new normal.”Mandia told the Times that hackers halted their operations back in February and attempted to wipe clean their digital fingerprints by scrubbing away spyware and other espionage tools used to surveil US businesses. Only one month after pausing, though, the hackers have resorted to once again using sophisticated means to carefully and clandestinely pilfer intelligence from American computers.According to Mandia, Unit 61398 is now operating at 60 to 70 percent of what their campaigns resembled before being exposed in the original New York Times article.Obama administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not react in disbelief. One senior official that spoke to the Times said, “this is something we are going to have to come back at time and again with the Chinese leadership,” who, he added, “have to be convinced there is a real cost to this kind of activity.”Mandiant declined to identify which computer systems have been allegedly targeted in the latest round of attacks, but claimed that many of the very same entities hit before their report was published are once again in trouble.“The hackers now use the same malicious software they used to break into the same organizations in the past, only with minor modifications to the code,” wrote David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth for the paper. “[T]hey have gradually begun attacking the same victims from new servers and have reinserted many of the tools that enable them to seek out data without detection.”So far, though, the Chinese have largely refused to buy into the claims that a top-secret PLA group is orchestrating some of the most serious cyberattacks ever waged at American entities. It was nearly one month after the February Mandiant report was released when Premier Li Keqiang called the claims “groundless accusations” and impractical.Hacking is a “worldwide problem and in fact China itself is a main victim of such attacks,” Li said in March. “China does not support — in fact it is opposed to – - hacking attacks.”At that meeting, a reporter asked Li, “Will China stop the cyber- hacking against the US since it has now become an issue of American national security?”“In your question I sensed the presumption of guilt,” the premier responded.Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote on Twitter after this week’s Times article, “When the Chinese gov hacks into US computers, it is cyberwar. When the US gov does it, it is ‘installing software.’”It doesn’t hurt the cases brought up by both Li and Soghoian that perhaps the most destructive tool of cyberwar used yet by any nation-state — the worm Stuxnet — is largely considered to be a tool developed by scientists working for the US and Israel. Although the White House has yet to admit to those claims on the record, Obama administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity have attested that Washington ordered Stuxnet and other malicious codes to be used against Iranian nuclear facilities.Just days before Li’s remark, the head of the US Cyber Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his agency plans to have 13 separate units trained by 2015 specifically to launch offensive cyberattacks at foreign targets.“The teams are analogous to battalions in the Army and Marine Corps — or squadrons in the Navy and Air Force,” Gen. Keith Alexander said at the hearing. “In short, they will soon be capable of operating on their own, with a range of operational and intelligence skill sets, as well as a mix of military and civilian personnel.”“I would like to be clear that this team. . . is an offensive team,” he said.Speaking to the Wall Street Journal a month later, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, accused the US of “using cybersecurity as an excuse to take inappropriate actions against Chinese companies and individuals” without providing “proof and evidence.””China stands ready to carry out constructive cooperation with all countries, including the US, to safeguard peace and security of the cyberspace on the basis of mutual respect,” he said. … Read More
Ceiling suspended: US takes on $300bn in new debt after hitting $16.7 trillion
Citing ‘extraordinary measures’, the US Treasury has further delayed tackling America’s debt, and will wait until Labor Day, September 2nd, to revisit the burgeoning crisis. The ceiling has been lifted, and the Treasury has promised it will keep cash pumping into government spending programs beyond the debt limit through a series of emergency cash tools. “It will not be until at least after Labor Day” when Washington will have reached their full borrowing capacity, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, told CNBC television on May 10th. Until then, the Treasury will borrow money to mend any gaps between government spending and revenues, adding to the already $16.7 trillion debt. On Friday, the Treasury Department announced it will suspend sales of State and Local Government Series loans (SLGS) until further notice. The suspension applies to demand deposit and time deposit securities.In the last four months, the US has accumulated $300 billion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the federal deficit will be $642 billion in FY13. The US economy has shown some promising signs of recovery. US consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in almost six years, jumping from 89.9 to 97.5, the highest post-recession consumer condition, the University of Michigan study found. “The global economic leadership position enjoyed by the United States rests on the confidence of Americans and people around the world that we are a nation that keeps its promises and pays all of its bills, in full and on time,” said Lew. US lawmakers first agreed to raise the debt ceiling two years ago, following a long, drawn out stand-off between Republicans and Democrats, which prompted Standard & Poor to strip the US of their AAA rating. The failed super committee ushered in sequestration, This time around, Lew has urged lawmakers to act more swiftly to not tarnish the reputation of the US economy.”Congress should deal with this right away. The fact that they have more time should not put off dealing with this,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s in the interests of the U.S. or the world economy for Congress to wait until the last minute and create a sense of anxiety,” said Lew. Lew hinted the debt ceiling is not up for negotiation, and that Obama would not bow to Republicans increase the debt ceiling but he does remain open for talks about a deficit deal.Lew was sworn in as Treasury Secretary on February 28th, 2013, after Congress voted in favor of raising the debt ceiling in January to avoid a default on the debt. … Read More
Israel’s ‘illegal’ military entry permit bars selected tourists from West Bank – report
The requirement for military entry permits reportedly began at the beginning of 2013. However, not everyone is required to obtain the special pass – and no information has been published surrounding the selection process. Clerics from the US reportedly had to sign a declaration at Ben-Gurion International Airport recently, promising not to enter Area A without permits from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). Area A includes all Palestinian cities and their surrounding areas, with no Israeli settlements. The area is fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority. COGAT is a military office which coordinates civilian issues between the Israeli government, the Israel Defense Forces, international organizations, diplomats, and the Palestinian Authority. “I understand that in the event that I enter any area under the control of the Palestinian Authority without the appropriate authorization all relevant legal actions will be taken against me, including deportation and denial of entry into Israel for a period of up to ten years,” the English-language version of the declaration reads. The clerics signed the document, but were not told how they could obtain the special permission. The clerics told Haaretz that they had been sent from their church to work with Christian communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. But their mission ended before it ever began because they were not told how to obtain the military entry permit. One of the clerics sought help from the US Consulate in Jerusalem – but none of the employees were aware of the restictions. The spokesman for the US consulate declined to answer whether Israel had informed the American authorities about the obligation to sign a statement, and did not explain the viewpoint of the US Department of State. According to Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, the Entry into Israel Law authorizes the interior minister to decide on the entry of foreigners to the State of Israel. In the case of Judea and Samaria, the Israel Defense Forces chief of general staff makes the determination with a permit from the coordinator’s office. “When a tourist or foreign national arrives at the international border crossings and it is believed that he wants to enter Judea and Samaria, he should be informed [of the procedure] and asked for his promise to receive a permit from the coordinator’s office before his entry – a permit that constitutes an essential condition [of entry to the Palestinian Authority controlled areas],” she said. But there is no mention of the existence of such a procedure on COGAT’s English website. The spokesman for the coordinator’s office said the matter of the procedure and the form is being examined. Meanwhile, lawyers are questioning the legality of the declaration. According to the Oslo Accords, citizens of countries which have diplomatic ties with Israel need only an entry permit for Israel and a valid passport to enter Palestinian Authority territories, Attorney Adi Lustigman said. The declaration “is not legal because it was formulated for an improper purpose – isolating the occupied territories – and in an improper manner. It makes the assumption that people who arrive in Israel as tourists, as clerics and for other purposes want to act in contradiction to the law, which may not have been explained to them clearly,” Lustigman said.“If there really is such a procedure, it should be publicized in a simple, clear and accessible manner…it seems there is no operative procedure, nor any procedure for submitting a request. We are left only with a prohibition, which, as we have mentioned, is invalid,” she added. The practice of requiring tourists to sign such declarations was first reported seven years ago, but was reportedly discontinued and renewed only at the beginning of this year. Several years ago, the Interior Ministry also began to limit the freedom of movement of tourists with work and family ties in the West Bank, in order to prevent their entry into Israel by means of a permit with the stamp “For the territories of Judea and Samaria only.” … Read More
How Many Female Athletes Get the Sports Illustrated Cover?
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