» Nuclear Emergency Sirens Conk Out in Storm

Times Free Press:

TVA safely shut down its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama with emergency backup power this week, but power outages across the Tennessee Valley still left the utility without enough emergency sirens to warn nearby residents of potential safety problems at both Browns Ferry in Alabama and the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy.

In a notice to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission released Friday, TVA said more than 60 percent of its sirens around Browns Ferry and about a third of its warning sirens around Sequoyah were inoperable this week when electricity service was lost to the sirens following Wednesday’s tornadoes and wind storms.

With so many sirens not working, TVA has had to be prepare plans to use police vehicles with loud- speakers to notify residents living within 10 miles of the plant should a nuclear accident occur.

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» 75,000 Applied for 2,000 McDonald’s Jobs

NBC Chicago:

A McJob looked mighty appealing to tens of thousands of people in the Chicago area.

More than 75,000 job-seekers applied for 2,000 area positions with McDonald’s during the fast food king’s first-ever“National Hiring Day” on April 19.

Applicants packed franchises in Illinois, Southern Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana. McDonald’s filled all 2,000 jobs, including more than 1,000 posts in the Chicago area alone, a McDonald’s spokesperson said.

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» Wal-Mart: Our Shoppers Are‘Running Out of Money’

CNN:

Wal-Mart’s core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

“We’re seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure,” Duke said at an event in New York.“There’s no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.”

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they’re“running out of money” at a faster clip, he said.

“Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year,” Duke said.“This end-of-month {purchases} cycle is growing to be a concern.

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» Federal Reserve Will Stop Buying Treasury Bonds; Keep Interest Rates Near Zero

Washington Post:

The Federal Reserve will end its program of pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy in June but will keep interest rates near zero for the foreseeable future.

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» Al-Qaida Bomber Worked for MI6

Guardian:

An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as a“facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al-Qaida”, was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and later sent to Guantánamo Bay.

But according to Hamlili’s Guantánamo“assessment” file, one of 759 individual dossiers obtained by the Guardian, US interrogators were convinced that he was simultaneously acting as an informer for British and Canadian intelligence.

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» Poul Thorsen, CDC Autism Researcher, Indicted for Wire Fraud and Money Laundering

Age of Autism:

We have a pdf of the indictment of Dr. Poul Thorsen the Danish researcher held in highest esteem for having“debunked” the autism vaccine connection many years ago. As Dr. Max Wiznitzer said about another doctor recently,“If you can’t trust the researcher, you can’t trust the research.”

—

Danish Scientist Indicted in U.S.

Via:Copenhagen Post:

Thorsen’s research on autism is widely known in academic circles, where he was until this week a highly respected figure. A paper of his on the subject, which is known as ‘The Danish Study’, is quoted extensively to refute the autism vaccine connection.

Each count of wire fraud carries a maximum of 20 years in prison and each count of money laundering a maximum of 10 years in prison, with a fine of up to $250,000 for each count. The federal government will also seeks forfeiture of all property derived from the alleged offenses.

Related:Federal Indictment of Poul Thorsen(.pdf)

Research Credit: anothernut

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» Obama on Manning:“He Broke the Law.”So Much for that Trial?

Firedog Lake:

President Barack Obama made stunning accusations about accused Wikileaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning, directly asserting that Manning“broke the law.” Apparently the President of the United States of America and a self-described Constitutional scholar does not care that Manning has yet to be tried or convicted for any crime.

Research Credit: anothernut

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» More Drivers Running Out Of Gas

CBS:

With gas prices pushing $4 a gallon, a lot of people are trying to stretch their dollar at the gas pump, but some of them are trying to stretch it a little too far.

Since the beginning of March, AAA has seen an 18 percent increase in the number of roadside calls for people running out of gas.

Related:U.S. Dollar

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» Three-Parent IVF Babies

New Scientist:

A review of technologies that create three-parent embryos to avoid mitochondrial disease has found no evidence that the methods are unsafe, calling for further research. Medical charities have followed up the report with a call to the UK’s health secretary to prepare to regulate the technology in clinics.

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» Pesticide Exposure in Pregnancy Linked to Lower IQ in Kids

U.S. News and World Report:

Three new studies draw a link between prebirth exposure to a class of pesticides widely used on food crops and lower intelligence scores in children.

The effect is especially noticeable in kids from a California farming region where they and their mothers were also potentially exposed to pesticides through their use on local crops.

The pesticides in question are known as organophosphates, which kill insects by disrupting their brains and nervous systems. First developed in a more potent form as nerve poisons during World War II, they can disrupt people’s nervous systems as well, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The research doesn’t prove that organophosphate exposure is bad for the developing brains of infants and children. That may be impossible to confirm because ethical constraints prevent scientists from randomly assigning kids to be exposed to pesticides to see what happens.

Still,“there’s a body of evidence that’s beginning to build” in support of a link, said Brenda Eskenazi, co-author of one of the studies and director of the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Although organophosphates are no longer used in bug-killing products designed for the home, they remain common in agriculture, the researchers noted.

Two of the studies, conducted by researchers at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and Columbia University, examined kids in New York City, while Eskenazi’s study looked at 329 kids and their mothers in the Salinas Valley area of central California. All of the studies found links between exposure to the pesticides in pregnant mothers and lower IQ scores in their kids by age 7.

In the Salinas Valley study, researchers looked at signs of pesticide exposure in urine taken from the mothers during pregnancy and later from their children.

The researchers found that every 10-fold increase in organophosphates detected during a mother’s pregnancy corresponded to a 5.5-point drop in overall IQ scores in her children by age 7.

In fact, the 20 percent of the children whose mothers appeared to have been exposed to the least pesticides had about a 7-point higher IQ level, on average, than those in the 20 percent born to mothers with the highest exposure, the researchers reported.

The difference is equivalent to about six months of brain development in a typical child, Eskenazi said. And the differences remained even when the researchers adjusted their statistics so they wouldn’t be thrown off by factors such as the education levels of the mothers and exposure to other toxins such as lead, she noted.

Eskenazi pointed out that the association was“substantial” in terms of whole populations, and might result in more children in need of special education and other services.

Research Credit: minerva

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» Michigan Police Copying Smartphone Data During Routine Traffic Stops?

Popular Mechanics:

In Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint alleging that Michigan State Police officers used forensic cellphone analyzers to snoop in drivers’ cellphones during routine traffic stops. PM talked to a Fourth Amendment expert to sort through whether that amendment’s protections against illegal search and seizure should stop an officer from scanning your phone.

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» U.S. Government Printing Office Needs 350,934 National Detainee Handbooks Printed by 29 April 2011

U.S. Government Printing Office:

Jacket Number:735-412/413

Bid Opening Date: 10:00 AM, PREVAILING CHICAGO, IL TIME, ON April 18, 2011.

Product: Paste-on-fold (self cover) Pamphlets (Spanish and English Versions).

Title: 735-412: National Detainee Handbook: Spanish 735-413: National Detainee Handbook: English

Quantity: 735-412: 221,367 (includes 2 GPO Chicago inspection samples) 735-413: 129,567 (includes 2 GPO Chicago inspection samples)

Ship/Deliver Date: MUST deliver complete on or before April 29 D, 2011.

Research Credit: WS

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» S&P Lowers U.S. Credit Rating Outlook to Negative

CNN:

Standard& Poor’s lowered its outlook for the nation’s long-term debt Monday, even as it reaffirmed the agency’s top-tier rating for the U.S. economy.

S&P maintained its‘AAA/A-1+’ credit rating on U.S. sovereign debt, saying the nation’s“highly diversified” economy and“effective monetary policies” have helped support growth.

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» 7 Million Afghans Will Go Hungry Without Aid

Reuters:

The United Nations warned on Friday of a looming food aid shortage in Afghanistan that could leave more than 7 million people hungry unless it received urgent cash donations of over $250 million to buy more supplies.

Most of those who will go short of food are women and children, but overall those at risk make up nearly a quarter of the country’s population of around 30 million, said the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP).

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» Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?

New York Times Magazine:

Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology. Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin.“Excessive sitting,” Dr. Levine says, “is a lethal activity.”

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» Belarus: Central Bank Halts Sales of Gold for Roubles

Reuters:

Belarus’ central bank has stopped selling gold to local retail customers for Belarussian roubles, it said on Friday, after demand for precious metals soared due to expectations of a currency devaluation.

The bank did not explain its decision.

Belarus is in talks with Russia on a $3 billion bailout package that Minsk hopes will help it avoid a painful devaluation of the rouble and offset the large current account deficit.

Belarussians bought 470 kilograms of gold from the central bank last month, up from 209 kilograms in January and February together, as they sought to protect their savings.

Analysts say that Belarus will have to eventually devalue the rouble by about 20-30 percent even if it receives aid from Moscow. However, the central bank has said it would not make any such moves until late April.

Research Credit: AN

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» Google Trades Down Over 5% in After Hours on Earnings Miss

CNBC:

Google shares slid in extended trading Thursday after the firm posted a profit that missed Wall Street expectations for the quarter, the first reporting period for the company since it named a new CEO.

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»‘Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?’

Rolling Stone:

But if you want to get a true sense of what the“shadow budget” is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall’s haul doesn’t seem all that huge— just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn’t seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.

Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley’s investment-banking division.Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.

The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called“giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no fucking reason at all.”

Research Credit: cgroove69

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» X-47B Killer Drone: Navy Wants Autonomous, Carrier Based Take Offs and Landings

Wired:

Take the X-47B experimental killer drone made by Northrop Grumman, the first drone intended to fly off an aircraft carrier. At the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space convention outside Washington, Northrop and the Navy and unveiled new details about the tailless, triangular plane and their schedule to get it flying off a carrier. Rule number one of the X-47B: it’s not “remotely piloted.”

Put the phrase“remotely piloted” out of your mind, says Janis Pamiljans, a Northrop vice president who handles the company’s Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) portfolio. When it gets on board an aircraft carrier, it’s going to be controlled by a “mouse click,” Pamiljans says. The click of a mouse will turn on the engines. Another will get it to taxi. Keep clicking, and the plane will “take off and come home.”

…

Both Engdahl or Pamiljans accordingly ducked a question about how the plane’s boasted autonomy will handle any weapons releases. Everyone who fears Skynet generally blanches at the idea of robots firing weapons on their own.But the X-47B will be“on autopilot 100 percent of the time,” Engdahl says.Nothing left to do but welcome our robot overlords.

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» Japan May Raise Nuke Accident Severity Level to 7; Highest

Kyodo:

The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan released a preliminary calculation Monday saying that the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been releasing up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour at some point after a massive quake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11.

The disclosure prompted the government to consider raising the accident’s severity level to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5, government sources said. The level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.

The current provisional evaluation of 5 is at the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.

According to an evaluation by the INES, level 7 accidents correspond with a release into the external environment radioactive materials equal to more than tens of thousands terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131. One terabecquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels.

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» EPA: New Radiation Highs in Little Rock Milk, Philadelphia Drinking Water

Forbes:

Milk from Little Rock and drinking water from Philadelphia contained the highest levels of Iodine-131 from Japan yet detected by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to data released by EPA Saturday.

The Philadelphia sample is below the EPA’s maximum contaminant level (MCL) for iodine-131, but the Little Rock sample is almost three times higher.

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» Sony, Canon Plants Knocked Out by Aftershock

Bloomberg:

Sony Corp. and Canon Inc. were among manufacturers that shut plants in Japan following a 7.1- magnitude earthquake yesterday, delaying their recovery from last month’s record temblor.

Sony, Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, said it suspended operations at two plants in Miyagi prefecture because of power outages caused by last night’s aftershock of the 9-magnitude temblor that struck March 11. Canon, Nikon Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., Tokyo Electron Ltd., NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp. also reported disruptions today.

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» Israel: Oil Shale

Energy Tribune:

Harold Vinegar, the former chief scientist of Royal Dutch Shell, has devised an ambitious plan that would, if successful, turn Israel into one of the world’s leading oil producers. Now chief scientist for Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI), Vinegar maintains that the 238 sq km Shefla Basin holds the world’s second largest shale deposits outside the United States, from which around 250 billion barrels of oil – about the same as Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves, could be extractable. IEI estimates the marginal cost of production at between US$35 and US$40 per barrel. That, says Vinegar, would be cheaper than the US$60 or so per barrel it would cost to extract crude oil in more hospitable locations such as the Arctic, and even favourably with the US$30-US$40 in Brazilian deepwater.

IEI, owned by the American telecom giant IDT Corp, anticipates starting commercial production by 2020, producing 50,000 barrels a day initially. While that figure is a fraction of the 270,000 barrels per day Israel currently consumes, Vinegar maintains it is a further key step toward achieving energy independence. Vinegar proposes thermal recovery for Israeli shale oil.

The IEI shale oil project has already attracted serious interest from investors. In November last year,Jacob Rothschildand media mogulRupert Murdochbought an $11million stake in Genie Oil and Gas, the division of IDC that is the parent company of IEI. Genie’s advisory board also includes former vice-presidentDick Cheneyand hedge fund investorMichael Steinhardt. But it seems development funding is likely to be no bar to the Shefla project. Vinegar states,“Funding is not needed for the pilot and demonstration, although once we are getting 50,000 barrels per day, we would want to have a partner. We have been approached by all the majors.”

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» Fukushima: TEPCO Claims to Have Stopped Leak of Highly Radioactive Water, For Now

Bloomberg:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a pit near one of the reactors at its stricken nuclear station north of Tokyo, after five days of trying to stem the flow.

Related: Fishing Halted in Japan’s Ibaraki After Radioactive Water Contaminates Sea

Via:Bloomberg:

Fishermen in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan’s fifth-largest seafood producer, halted operations after tainted fish were detected south of Fukushima, where radioactive water from a stricken nuclear plant contaminated the sea.

About 96 percent of fishing off the coast of Ibaraki was suspended after sand lance contaminated with higher-than- acceptable levels of cesium were discovered yesterday, said Tomoki Mashiko, assistant director at the fishing policy division of the prefectural government. Fishing in Ibaraki had been suspended since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, restarted as early as March 28, and then suspended again today.

Sushi restaurants and hotels, including Shangri-La Asia’s luxury chain, dropped Japanese seafood from their menus because of radiation fears. Japan exported 565,295 metric tons of marine products worth 195 billion yen ($2.3 billion) last year. A fishing industry group in Fukushima asked Tokyo Electric Power Co. to stop dumping toxic water into thesea as the operator of the damaged nuclear plant struggles to stem radiation leakage.

“The action may be undermining the whole fishing industry in Japan,” Ikuhiro Hattori, chairman for the National Federation of Fisheries Co-Operative Associations, told a vice trade minister today, referring to Tepco dumping water.

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»‘It’s very hard to spend $20 million a year, even $10 million’

AP:

While most of the country is still dealing with the daily realities of a struggling economy, University of California, Berkeley professor Robert Reich said the super-rich are richer today than they have ever been.

“It’s very hard to spend $20 million a year, even $10 million,” said Reich, former Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration.“The super-rich are always on the lookout for new thrills and new expensive thrills.”

High-end retailers such as Tiffany& Co. and Neiman Marcus continue to do well despite the economy, he said. And even as NASA experiences budget cuts, the extraordinary wealthy are willing to pay small fortunes to go into space or into the depths of the ocean, said the public policy professor.

“People who are selling to the super-rich basically can’t lose,” he said.“Richard Branson can dig a hole to the center of the earth and charge a million dollars a day to go through it and he’d find people to take him up on the offer.”

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» McDonald’s Wants to Fill 50K Jobs on Hiring Day

AP:

McDonald’s Corp. plans to hold its first national hiring day April 19 to fill 50,000 openings at its restaurants nationwide.

The company says it is making a concerted effort to add staff as its business improves and as more of its restaurants stay open 24 hours a day.

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» Ivory Coast: Aid Workers Find 1,000 Bodies in Duekoue

Telegraph:

The single biggest atrocity in the long battle for control of Ivory Coast has emerged after aid workers discovered the bodies of up to 1,000 people in the town of Duekoue.

Charity workers who reached Duekoue said it appeared the killings had taken place in a single day, shortly after the town fell to troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the man internationally-recognised as having won last year’s presidential election.

The apparent massacre came despite the presence of United Nations troops and– if confirmed– will cast a shadow over Mr Outtara’s assumption of the Ivory Coast’s presidency after a four-month battle to oust Lawrence Gbagbo, the former president who lost the November election but refused to step down.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said he was“gravely concerned” by the violence and loss of life in Ivory Coast and added: “I am determined that all alleged human rights abuses… must be investigated and those responsible held to account.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said its staff discovered more than 800 bodies of people who were clearly local civilians. They were mainly men who had been shot and left where they fell, the organisation said, either alone or in small groups dotted around the town, which lies at the heart ofIvory Coast’s economically crucial cocoa producing region.

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» Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret

Bloomberg:

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as much as $33.5 billion through its New York branch from the Fed’s “discount window” lending program, according to Fed documents released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Dublin-based Depfa Bank Plc, taken over in 2007 by a German real-estate lender later seized by the German government, drew $24.5 billion.

The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record. The disclosures may stoke a reexamination of the risks posed to U.S. taxpayers by the central bank’s role in global financial markets.

“The caricature of the Fed is that it was shoveling money to big New York banks and a bunch of foreigners, and that is not conducive to its long-run reputation,” said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2001 to 2007.

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