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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34358380

Los Angeles police said Majed Abdulaziz al-Saud, 28, was arrested on Wednesday and released the following day after posting a $300,000 (£197,000) bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on October 19 to face a charge of "forced oral copulation". Al-Saud does not have diplomatic immunity, police said.

So I joked last Sunday about how some of my kids gave a pass on watching Star Trek to go play role playing games. This Sunday will be different: there's a new episode of Star Trek Continues! It's neat to see my kids' preferences: most of them prefer TOS over everything else (we skip around and watch random episodes every Sunday) although one likes Voyager the most. Star Trek Continues is actually how we got started doing this, and they all love it.

Three of the kids didn't want to watch Star Trek with the rest of the family today; they were too busy playing a pen and paper role playing game of their own devising.

In other news, I think I'm successfully raising kids to be a lot like me...

http://www.cnn.com/ (right on the front page, no Fox BS)
Or an audio stream.

Starts at 5:10 PM PT, 8:10 PM ET.

Wikipedia:

The undercard broadcast took place at 3 PM PDT, while the main card broadcast will occur at 5 PM PDT. The candidates in the main debate are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and John Kasich. The candidates in the undercard debate are Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum, and George Pataki. Rick Perry suspended his campaign on September 11, effectively ending his candidacy. The two-tiered CNN broadcasts will be consecutive, with the primetime debate planned to immediately follow the second-tier broadcast. The moderator is Jake Tapper of CNN, with side-by-side participation by Hugh Hewitt of Salem Radio.

Other stuff:

• NYT live coverage
• PolitiFact
• Republican Party presidential debates, 2016
• Twitter live

Pushing To Attract Millennials, Taco Bell Will Offer Beer And Wine

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On Tuesday, Taco Bell announced it is launching a new concept that "redefines fast food experience." The first of these "experiences" will open in Chicago next week, and another one will follow later this month in San Francisco.

In a statement, the company says:

"Taco Bell Cantina restaurants will be the first and only Taco Bell restaurants to serve alcohol to customers who are of legal drinking age. The San Francisco restaurant will serve beer and wine only, while Wicker Park will serve, beer, wine, sangria and twisted Freezes. Cantina restaurants will also feature a new tapas-style menu of sharable appetizers — including nachos and rolled tacos — during designated hours each evening, in addition to the standard Taco Bell Menu."

These new cantinas won't have drive-throughs and will have open kitchens, according to a press release. They will also have digital menu boards, television monitors and an option for customers to use a mobile app to order and pay for their food.

[...] As USA Today reports:

"The company knows that its Millennial customers increasingly are attracted to urban areas, where real estate is pricey. Company officials think that selling a stiffer drink might pad the receipts — the typical Taco Bell receipt is in the $7 range — and in turn help make their urbanization push more doable.

" 'To put in a drive-thru you need land,' Neil Borkan, the Taco Bell franchisee who will operate the Chicago test location, told USA TODAY. 'Can you imagine buying an acre of land in a neighborhood like [Chicago's] Wicker Park? You couldn't afford it. As real estate becomes more and more expensive, this kind of concept makes more sense.'

"Taco Bell is treading carefully into booze. While quick-service rival Starbucks recently announced it would accelerate its push of its beer and wine program and has applied for liquor licenses for hundreds of stores across the USA in recent months, Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch said the company could potentially open 10 locations selling hard drinks next year."

The day I met Rio’s favela master: the drug lord who championed the poor: Misha Glenny tells of his prison meetings with Nem of Rocinha, the slum crime boss who channelled some of his cocaine profits into running a welfare state for 100,000 people

After his arrest, I wrote to Nem in prison and asked if he would speak to me. He agreed. The story that emerged was fascinating: once he reached the top, Nem was, in effect, mayor, police chief and director of the chamber of commerce for a community estimated at 100,000 residents. With the receipts from the cocaine trade, he ran a business that supported nearly 1,000 people. He also channelled some of his profits into a basic welfare state. He could do this because he paid close attention to accounting and budgetary matters.

“The food baskets and the support we gave to extracurricular school activities, such as the Thai boxing or capoeira classes, were all accounted for as part of our business expenses,” he explained. “But the burials, prescription costs or if anyone who couldn’t afford it needed gas, these were all extra payments.”

In the absence of any regular police, law was maintained by 150 armed men, most in their teens and early 20s. But while the man known locally as Mestre, or master, decided over life or death, he usually opted for the former. Under his rule, homicide rates dropped by more than two-thirds.

This was part-calculation, part-intuition. Rocinha was so profitable for the cocaine trade because it is surrounded by the three richest areas of Rio – Leblon, São Conrado and Gávea. By turning Rocinha into the safest and most attractive favela in Rio, business boomed. “He was not a man of violence,” said Detective Bárbara Lomba, who led the three-strong team that patiently investigated the Rocinha drugs operation for four years. “He had a policy of avoiding confrontation wherever possible and of not facing down the police. Rather the opposite, he was in contact with them in a corrupt relationship.”

Nem’s policy paid off. Rocinha became a fixture on the tourist route; Brazil’s biggest pop stars such as Ivete Sangalo and Claudia Leitte were happy to include the favela on their tours, boosting their popularity with Brazil’s poor. Politicians including former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the current incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, were keen to tour, as were members of Brazil’s national football side. Above all, the youngsters from the surrounding middle class areas went to buy coke.

Beltrame knew that he would have to “pacify” Rocinha because of its symbolic power and its location. As the World Cup and the Olympics approached the pressure grew. But by taking Nem out of the equation, Rocinha’s character has changed. The relationship between the police and residents is uneasy at best. In July 2013, a group which included the chief of Rocinha police murdered an innocent bricklayer, and the favela came close to open insurrection.

Since then the drug cartel has been edging its way back and there are sporadic shootouts with the police. Homicides remain at historic low levels but domestic violence, rape, assault and burglary have increased fourfold.

Started my oldest son reading the Little House series. He tore through the first book in a day. We did some online reading about the parents and siblings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I didn't get into Rose Wilder Lane with him (yet), but she is a very interesting character to read about! The FBI kept a file on her because she was "subversive," meaning she didn't approve of everything the government did. (Just like me, and one day my children, too, I hope.) I love this account of her tearing into a state trooper who was sent to check her out. The FBI insisted that they had no choice but to investigate, because she responded to a radio survey about Social Security by expressing her disapproval of it.

My 10yo son just came to me and asked "Is the moon pulling on the earth?" I confirmed it was and reviewed gravity with him. Then he asked "So is there a place in the middle where if you put something there it would just stay there?"

Wow, son! You've figured out Lagrange points! I'm proud. :)

https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=8941

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metamesh/meta-mesh-community-wireless-networks-for-all

Funding Canceled

Funding for this project was canceled by the project creator 1 day ago.

http://www.metamesh.org/blog/2015/08/14/ks-closure

Today we decided to halt our Kickstarter campaign. In the past few weeks, Meta Mesh and its volunteers have had to face a lot of challenges, both in the business and personal realms. We received wide support from many of those we directly asked. For that, we are terrifically grateful.

We have decided to change the direction our company is headed. In no way are we finished. In fact, this Kickstarter experience revealed a lot to us about who we want to be and how to be it.

In the upcoming months we will be expanding PittMesh, launching a webstore where pre-configured routers can be purchased, and will be building a dedicated PittMesh Working Group where people who want to contribute to building a Community Wireless Network can learn about new technology, can gain new skills, and can network with inspired people.

Definitely stay tuned to our website and our social media feeds. In fact, mere moments after closing our Kickstarter campaign something occurred which we will announce shortly that has been months in the making and we are incredibly excited about.

We’re not done. No way. As they say, it’s hard to keep a good man down. We’ll be in touch with you all again shortly.

I'm really amazed at how I spend so little time at Slashdot now. SoylentNews just sort of seamlessly replaced Slashdot in my mind for whenever I would have gone there. My fingers know to type "so" in my browser bar now instead of "sl", and the rest is automatic. I still check in there about daily or so, but I have a lot less inclination to post.

Thanks, SoylentNews!