/newsplus/ - News +

More than half the public believe the admission of previously taking cocaine should disqualify people from being an MP, says a survey that will be a blow to Michael Gove’s hopes of weathering the storm over his drug revelation.

The YouGov poll of 1,677 people shows 56 percent of the population believe it is not acceptable for someone who has ever taken cocaine to be a member of Parliament.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/09/cocaine-use-should-disqualify-becoming-mp-majority-public-believe/?

>Online campaign against Weber and Timmermans exploits flaws in Google and Facebook systems.

A mysterious online campaign against leading European Commission presidential candidates has featured in Google and Facebook ads despite breaching both companies' rules on political advertising.

The campaign uses online advertisements to target Manfred Weber, the German candidate of Europe's main center-right political alliance, and Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, his Dutch center-left rival. The ads link to two articles hosted on the Medium online publishing platform that criticize both men, posted under what appears to be a fake profile.

https://www.politico.eu/article/secret-ad-campaign-targets-top-jobs-race/

A cruise operator says a passenger went overboard during a voyage in the Mediterranean Sea and a search for the missing Korean woman has been called off without her being found.

Norwegian Cruise Line tweeted a photographed statement Sunday that said the woman went into the sea Saturday while the Norwegian Epic was sailing from France to Spain.

"Early morning on June 8, a 63-year-old Korean female guest went overboard while the ship was sailing from Cannes, France to Palma de Mallorca, Spain," the cruise line tweeted.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2019/06/09/norwegian-cruise-line-says-search-overboard-passenger-ended/1401671001/?

>Ivan Golunov, a reporter for an opposition-friendly news site, accused of drugs offenses that friends say are trumped-up.

The arrest of a prominent investigative journalist on drugs charges triggered protests across Russia and abroad in what is being described as a watershed moment for the country’s beleaguered independent media.

Ivan Golunov, a reporter for Meduza, an opposition-friendly news site, was on his way to meet an unnamed source on Thursday afternoon when he was detained by police in central Moscow. Golunov, 36, is the author of a number of hard-hitting reports on alleged corruption by Russian officials and government-linked businesspeople.

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-condemned-over-journalists-arrest/?

>Three people charged with drug and weapons offenses

Three people have been arrested and charged with multiple drug and weapons-related offenses, Waterloo regional police say.

Police say the arrest occurred on Thursday in the area of Concession Street and Ainslie Street S. in Cambridge, as part of an ongoing drug investigation.

A 39-year-old man, a 38-year old man, and a 17-year-old female were arrested.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/drug-weapons-cash-seized-during-arrest-wrps-1.5168297?

Images of hunters celebrating their trophies often draw widespread support and widespread condemnation - something Tess Talley knows first hand. In 2017, she killed a giraffe in South Africa. In 2018, her photo of the kill went viral and prompted worldwide outrage.

Talley joined "CBS This Morning" Friday to say that she's "absolutely" still going hunting.

"It's a hobby, it's something that I love to do," she said. Talley said that the controversial kill was part of a conservation hunt, designed to manage the amount of wildlife in a given area.

"I am proud to hunt," she said. "And I am proud of that giraffe."

more here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-hunter-tess-talley-has-no-regrets-about-viral-photo-of-slain-giraffe/

Both AT&T and Verizon are in the (very) early stages of rolling out their 5G networks, but T-Mobile is taking a while longer to get everything in order. The carrier hasn't begun to officially market its 5G network, but one person in New York was able to give it a shot using an unlocked Verizon Galaxy S10 5G — and initial results aren't bad at all.

Milan Milanović was seemingly able to connect to T-Mobile's under-development 5G network using an unlocked Verizon Galaxy S10 5G, and was able to reach download speeds of nearly 500Mbps. That can't quite match the gigbait speeds seen on AT&T and Verizon's networks, but if T-Mobile's 5G support is "blanketing" Manhattan as Milanović said, that certainly makes it more practical than other current 5G networks — which have an extremely limited distance.

We'll have to wait for T-Mobile's official 5G rollout to see how the network performs with thousands (or millions) of people using it at once, but this is a promising start.

more here:

https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/05/28/tester-sneaks-on-to-t-mobiles-5g-network-in-manhattan-pulls-down-500mbps-downloads/

Predominantly Sunni jihadi groups carried out 187 terrorist attacks across nearly 30 countries on Ramadan this year, driving the number of fatalities up to 911 and injuries to 1,006 when compared to the casualties during the holiest month for Muslims in 2018, a Breitbart News database analysis shows.

The number of deaths went up by about ten percent, from 841 last year to 911 in 2019. The overall number of casualties, including injuries, slightly increased by less than five percent from 1,855 (841 killed; 1,014 injured) to 1,917 (911 killed; 1,006 injured) in 2019.

During the month of Ramadan in each of last three years — 2017 (1,639), 2018 (841), and 2019 (911) – jihadi organizations and other Islamists have killed 3,391 civilians and troops.

Despite the ongoing peace negotiations with the United States, the Taliban remained the most prolific and bloodiest terrorist group this year, surpassing the brutality of the weakened Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

more here:

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/06/08/ramadan-2019-deadlier-than-2018-taliban-responsible-for-over-40-of-nearly-2000-casualties/#

>The decision to charge Assange with espionage crimes is particularly unusual because most cases involving the theft of classified information have targeted government employees, rather than people who publish it

The US Justice Department has unveiled 17 criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition from the UK.

The latest charges accuse him of unlawfully publishing the names of classified sources as well as conspiring and assisting ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in accessing classified information.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/julian-assange-charges-wikileaks-prison-embassy-rape-allegation-us-a8928021.html

Mobility in the United States has fallen to record lows. In 1985, nearly 20 percent of Americans had changed their residence within the preceding 12 months, but by 2018, fewer than ten percent had. That’s the lowest level since 1948, when the Census Bureau first started tracking mobility.

The decline in Americans’ mobility has been staggering, as the chart below shows. Mobility rates have fallen for nearly every group, across age, gender, income, homeownership status, and marital status.

Declining mobility contributes to a host of economic and social issues: less economic dynamism, lower rates of innovation, and lower productivity. By locking people into place, it exacerbates inequality by limiting the economic opportunities for workers.

more here:

https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/06/why-some-americans-wont-move-even-higher-salary/157494/

Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens has been banned for a year from attending NBA games and team activities after his altercation with Raptors guard Kyle Lowry in Golden State’s Game 3 loss at Oracle Arena, the NBA and the Warriors announced Thursday.

This means Stevens, who has also been fined $500,000, can’t take part in Golden State’s debut season at Chase Center in San Francisco. The punishment came down after the NBA and the Warriors conducted an investigation into Stevens’ behavior in Game 3 on Wednesday.

Early in the fourth quarter, while pursuing a loose ball, Lowry collided with two fans sitting in courtside seats and knocked one of them back. He was on top of the fans and trying to stand up and return to the court when Stevens reached over and shoved Lowry in the left arm.

more here:

https://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/Warriors-fan-ejected-from-Game-3-of-NBA-Finals-13950253.php?t=f0dbed33dd&f?

The top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East says he believes the Iranians or their proxies may orchestrate an attack at any moment.

"I think the threat is imminent," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie said in an exclusive broadcast interview with NBC News in the Iraqi capital. "We continually evaluate our force posture in the region."

The U.S. has beefed up its military presence in the region in an effort to deter Iran and protect American forces and allies.

Over the last month, the Trump administration announced that it was sending an aircraft carrier strike group and Air Force bombers to the Middle East, as well as Patriot missiles and additional troops, amid heightened concerns of an Iranian attack.

more here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/u-s-commander-says-american-forces-face-imminent-threat-iran-n1014556

At the Cannes film festival last month, the scandal arrived with metronomic predictability: Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood" might have been the week's hottest ticket and Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho might have taken the cherished Palme d'Or. But it was Abdellatif Kechiche's "Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo" that set tongues wagging, literally and figuratively.

The nearly four-hour film caused a ruckus, not just because of its derriere-numbing running time (most of it spent observing nubile teenage girls twerking to a pounding soundtrack of club music), but because of a 15-minute scene of cunnilingus, filmed so realistically that questions immediately arose as to whether it was unsimulated.

more here:

https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Sex-is-disappearing-from-the-big-screen-and-it-s-13958705.php