No whining in this corner, it’s all good news everywhere we look!
Hey Republicans: have you heard about Karma?
What goes around, comes around:
Secret documents detailing special prosecutor Ken Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton will reportedly be unsealed following a federal court’s ruling Monday and could be used as a roadmap for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.
[...]
Among other things, the documents reportedly describe how Starr’s team and Clinton’s attorneys negotiated for six months before the president sat down for an interview under oath.
Howell explained that some of the records should have been made public before, but that no proper direction had been given for their release. Howell is also the judge likely to oversee Mueller’s grand jury in Washington, D.C., according to The National Law Journal.
Not only did they go public with this, so nobody in Congress can claim they don’t know, but it was on all the news channels and the agencies want all Americans to know.
Intelligence agencies united:
Coats and the other top national security officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that they still view Moscow as a threat to the 2018 elections, a stance that appears at odds with President Donald Trump's repeated dismissals of Russian election meddling.
"We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokesmen and other means to influence, to try to build on its wide range of operations and exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States," Coats said at a hearing on worldwide threats. "There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 US midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations."
Tuesday's hearing touched on a wide array of threats, from North Korea to China to weapons of mass destruction. But Russia's interference into US and other elections loomed large amid the committee's investigation into Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russian officials.
They paid off Nigeria’s debt. Now they are rethinking their education track record and trying to make the US fairer for everyone.
Gates Foundation turns its eyes to us:
Bill and Melinda Gates, as the world's top philanthropists, are rethinking their work in America as they confront what they consider their unsatisfactory track record on schools, the country's growing inequity and a president they disagree with more than any other.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the couple said they're concerned about President Donald Trump's "America first" worldview. They've made known their differences with the president and his party on issues including foreign aid, taxes and protections for immigrant youth in the country illegally.
And they said they're now digging into the layers of U.S. poverty that they haven't been deeply involved with at the national level, including employment, race, housing, mental health, incarceration and substance abuse.
Police recommend charges for Netanyahu:
Police separated allegations against Netanyahu, who has been Prime Minister since 2009, into two cases.
The report concluded that police have allegedly found "sufficient evidence to substantiate" claims of bribe, fraud and breach of trust against Netanyahu.
Some people with 401Ks are going to be happy.
Deutsche Bank to repay millions:
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has instituted an enforcement action against Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (DBSI), a Delaware corporation with offices in New York, and wholly owned Deutsche Bank AG indirect subsidiary, which has agreed to repay more than $3.7 million to customers, which includes $1.48 million ordered as disgorgement.
The SEC’s investigation found that traders and salespeople at the bank made false and misleading statements while negotiating sales of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). The transactions that were investigated took place between 2011 and 2015 in relation to secondary market transactions in non-agency CMBS.
Their latest action follows news earlier this month that Miami-based businessman, Ariel Quiros, who was behind an alleged scheme involving investments in a Vermont-based ski resort, has agreed to pay over $81 million of investor money that he used illegally.
People are starting to get woke.
Fired for racial profiling:
A St. Louis woman claims she was racially profiled at an Independence Applebee's when, she says, she and a friend were accused of leaving without paying their bill during a previous visit. Alexis Brison posted a video of the incident on Facebook on Saturday, reports CBS Kansas City affiliate KCTV. As of Monday, the video had been viewed 1.9 million times and shared 45,000 times.
Applebee's says three employees were fired as a result, adding it is temporarily closing the eatery involved.
In a statement, the chain says, "We recognize the hurt and pain caused by the recent incident at an Applebee's restaurant in Independence, Mo. We very much regret this occurred and sincerely apologize to our guests and community. After an internal investigation and in-line with our values, the franchisee terminated the manager, server and another employee involved in the incident. We do not tolerate racism, bigotry or harassment of any nature, and we have taken additional steps to close the restaurant at this time in order for the team there to regroup, reflect, learn and grow from this. We are reaching out to the guests involved to apologize directly. We know rebuilding trust with those affected by the incident will take time, and we look forward to finding resolution in the coming days."
Boycotts work.
Unilever says no to hate, puts its money where its mouth is:
One of the world's largest advertisers is threatening to pull its ads from social sites such as Facebook and YouTube if the tech companies don't do more to minimize divisive content on their platforms.
Unilever's chief marketing officer, Keith Weed, called on Silicon Valley on Monday to better police what he describes as a toxic online environment where propaganda, hate speech and disturbing content that exploits children thrive.
"Fake news, racism, sexism, terrorists spreading messages of hate, toxic content directed at children — parts of the internet we have ended up with is a million miles from where we thought it would take us," Weed said in a speech at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert. "It is in the digital media industry's interest to listen and act on this."
Shell installs pollution monitoring equipment:
As part of a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department, Shell Chemical LP agreed to install $10 million in pollution monitoring and control equipment at a Louisiana plant.
The settlement resolves allegations that Shell violated the U.S. Clean Air Act and Louisiana law by failing to properly operate industrial flares at the facility.
Installing the equipment will help reduce harmful air pollution from four flares at the Norco, La., plant, the Justice Department said.
New flu fighters:
The worst flu season in years has health professionals scrambling to find ways to combat the virus. In Japan, one company says it has developed a treatment that kills the flu in a day, and a doctor in the U.S. is exploring the use of ultraviolet light to kill the virus.
The Japanese drug is called Baloxavir, manufactured by the company Shionogi. According to the company's most recent study, the drug gets rid of influenza much more quickly than Tamiflu, the most popular treatment in the U.S. In a late-stage trial, the median time it took Baloxavir to eliminate the disease was about a day.
But the shortened treatment time didn't necessarily mean patients in the trial felt better sooner, a representative from Shionogi tells CBS News, explaining that the drug works differently than Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs. Watch the video above for more details.
The new UV light is UVC which doesn’t penetrate more than the outer layer of skin or harm the eyes, but you can get home UV lights already to kill germs just like they have in hospitals, and yes, it kills the flu virus.