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canopic jug writes:

Amos Yee is set to give his first ever public talk at Harvard.

Yee is a teenager from Singapore who has recently been granted political asylum in the US. He was in trouble with the Singaporean regime for repeatedly criticizing the country's late founder, Lee Kuan Yew. His treatment has been marginally better in the US. Although he was granted asylum by the US back in March, he was held in US jail until late September where he ran in to difficulties for his ongoing criticism of Islam. Currently, he is banned from Facebook for alleged, unspecified "community standards" violations. His videos are available on YouTube.

Original Submission

NewNic writes:

Claiming a shortage of workers for the hospitality industry, Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club has requested and obtained permission to hire 70 foreign workers. The claim of a shortage of available workers is disputed:

'"We currently have 5,136 qualified candidates in Palm Beach County for various hospitality positions listed in the Employ Florida state jobs database," CareerSource spokesman Tom Veenstra said Friday.'

70 is a slight increase over last year, when 64 foreign workers were hired.

"Making America Great Again" by hiring foreigners? Perhaps what is required is higher pay, not foreigners.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

According to The Missoulian (archive):

Several of Missoula's top federal fire scientists have been denied permission to attend the International Fire Congress later this month, leading conference organizers to suspect censorship of climate-related research.

"Anyone who has anything related to climate-change research — right away was rejected," said Timothy Ingalsbee of the Association for Fire Ecology, a nonprofit group putting on the gathering. Ingalsbee noted that was his personal opinion, and that the AFE [Association for Fire Ecology] is concerned that a federal travel restriction policy may be more to blame.

The Missoulian also said (archive):

The scientists no longer attending include Matt Jolly, who was to present new work on "Climate-induced variations in global severe weather fire conditions," Karin Riley on "Fuel treatment effects at the landscape level: burn probabilities, flame lengths and fire suppression costs," Mike Battaglia on "Adaptive silviculture for climate change: Preparing dry mixed conifer forests for a more frequent fire regime," and Dave Calkin, who was working on ways to manage the human response to wildfire.

takyon: Also at Scientific American (thanks to another Anonymous Coward).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Something is definitely going on in Saudi Arabia:

Saudi authorities arrested at least 11 princes, several current ministers and dozens of former ministers in a sweeping move reportedly designed to consolidate power for the son of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. According to media reports citing Saudi-owned television network Al Arabiya, an anti-corruption committee ordered the arrests hours after King Salman directed the creation of the committee, headed by his favorite son and adviser, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The committee was established by the royal decree, The Associated Press reports, "due to the propensity of some people for abuse, putting their personal interest above public interest, and stealing public funds." Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is among those detained, The Wall Street Journal reports. Alwaleed holds stakes in some of the world's major companies, including Apple and Twitter.

Remember Prince Alwaleed? Bitcoin could outlive him.

It's unclear what those arrested are accused of doing, but Al-Arabiya reported that new investigations into the 2009 Jeddah floods and 2012 MERS virus outbreak have been launched.

Separately, the heads of the Saudi National Guard and Saudi Royal Navy have also been replaced.

BBC notes that the reform faction is in control here:

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Prince Mohammed is moving to consolidate his growing power while spearheading a reform programme. [...] Prince Mohammed recently said the return of "moderate Islam" was key to his plans to modernise Saudi Arabia. Addressing an economic conference in Riyadh, he vowed to "eradicate the remnants of extremism very soon". Last year, Prince Mohammed unveiled a wide-ranging plan to bring social and economic change to the oil-dependent kingdom.

Some Soylentils have been skeptical of Saudi Arabia's recent moves towards liberalization (some listed below). Has this apparent purge of internal political opposition changed your mind about the viability of these reforms?

aristarchus writes:

According to The Daily Beast, Jenna Abrams was not a real person at all, but was part of a Russian plot to turn Americans against themselves:

Her opinions about everything from manspreading on the subway to Rachel Dolezal to ballistic missiles still linger on news sites all over the web.

[...] Her account was the creation of employees at the Internet Research Agency, or the Russian government-funded "troll farm," in St. Petersburg.

[...] Abrams' pervasiveness in American news outlets shows just how much impact Russia's troll farm had on American discourse in the run-up to the 2016 election—and illustrates how Russian talking points can seep into American mainstream media without even a single dollar spent on advertising.

While the the [sic] typical image of a Russian troll may be a hastily put together Twitter account blaring out non-stop political messages, Abrams' account went to great lengths to simulate a real, American person who existed outside of Twitter fights and amplifying racist disinformation.

Her Twitter account was created back in 2014. She had a personal website, a Medium page, her own Gmail, and even a GoFundMe page.

takyon: More Russia stuff follows:

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Democratic National Committee is hiring IT people for these positions:

• Chief Security Officer
• Data Science Lead
• Full-stack Engineer
• IT Help Desk Manager
• IT Systems Administrator
• Product Designer
• Product Director
• Product Manager

The Daily Wire, a conservative blog, posted an e-mail purportedly from Madeleine Leader, the DNC's Data Services Manager, showing her announcing the openings and writing

I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight while males, since they're already in the majority.

The Daily Wire blogger posted a different screenshot of the e-mail on Twitter.

Also at The Hill

Original Submission

DeathMonkey and an Anonymous Coward submitted an NPR story, which has been updated since being posted. The Justice Department has unsealed charges against three former aides of President Donald Trump, as part of an investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller:

Manafort and Gates, were charged with "conspiracy against the United States," "conspiracy to launder money" and other offenses. The two were expected in court in Washington by the afternoon.

The Justice Department indictment on Manafort and Gates contains 12 counts: "conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts."

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI.

The Manafort and Gates indictment unsealed on Monday morning does not make any reference to Russia's influence campaign against the presidential election, but it does allege extensive financial ties between Manafort and Gates and powerful Ukrainians.

The Papadopoulos materials, on the other hand, detail the many contacts investigators say he had with Russian-linked operatives. He met at least two people, a man and a woman, who the FBI says were working for the Russian government and had boasted to him about the help it could offer the Trump campaign against Clinton.

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Phoenix666 writes:

After RT published excerpts from Twitter's "limited offer" to spend millions on US election marketing, the company abruptly banned all advertising from the news network. This makes full disclosure and transparency imperative, so here goes.

On Thursday, the micro-blogging platform announced a policy decision to ban ads from RT and Sputnik, citing alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.

It followed Twitter's report implying that RT was trying to influence US public opinion, crucially without providing context that virtually all news media organizations spend money on advertising their news coverage.
...
RT was thereby forced to reveal some details of the 2016 negotiations during which Twitter representatives made an exclusive multi-million dollar advertising proposal to spend big during the US presidential election, which was turned down.

Having since been banned, and in order to set the record straight, we are publishing Twitter's presentation and details of the offer in full.

Lenin said it: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

Original Submission

Arik writes:

The last step to render I:8:11 a dead letter is currently being debated in a federal appeal.

Trump Justice Department: Wars are off limits to court review

A Trump administration attorney said Friday that federal courts cannot evaluate whether a president is waging an illegal war, even if the war clearly has no grounding in a congressional authorization of force and someone directly impacted sues.

The claim was made during oral arguments in an appeal filed by Nathan Michael Smith, a now-former Army intelligence analyst who sued last year claiming former President Barack Obama was illegally fighting Islamic State terrorists without an authorization for use of military force, or AUMF, from Congress.

[...] "What if the president were to initiate hostilities with a nation or organization that wasn't plausibly within these AUMFs, would that be subject to review?" Griffith asked.

"No, I think, is the short answer. No," said Thomas Byron, an experienced Justice Department attorney.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

This afternoon, Catalonia declared independence. At the same time, Spain invoked article 155, to strip Catalonia from its governing powers putting it under direct rule from the federal government. A vote for independence was raised in Catalonian parliament, with part of parliament leaving before the vote on independence started. The motion declaring independence was approved with 70 in favor, 10 against, and two abstentions of the normal 135 total.

From RT: https://www.rt.com/news/407956-catalan-parliament-votes-independence/
From Aljazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/catalan-parliament-begins-vote-independence-171027115908493.html
From BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41780116

It will be interesting to see how things unfold. In my opinion, Madrid using violence to stop a referendum gave it the legality they later claim the referendum didn't have. The lack of dialogue paved the way into the only possible outcome, Catalonia declaring independence and Madrid denying it. Whatever happens next, I hope will be peaceful. As to how the EU reacts, I'm hoping they ask for an official referendum, and whatever the outcome, pledges that both Catalonia and Spain will be able to remain in the EU if they desire. That may release tensions a bit.

Original Submission