Duke University and a private company have been selling access to unproven cord blood treatments for autism. Now, they’re planning something much bigger.

All Defense Department personnel are now subject to “continuous vetting” designed to spot extremists and other insider threats, with surveillance of their public social-media postings likely coming soon, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. The announcement follows years of effort to comply with a 2011 executive order to improve on the current security-clearance process, which features an initial investigation but generally no followup for five or more years. The new system will raise flags when new information arrives, such as when a DOD employee is arrested.  It arrives as the department grapples with extremism among uniformed and civilian personnel. Conservatives have accused the Biden administration and senior U.S. military leaders of purging right-wing free speech.  Screening troops’ and DOD employees’ social-media posts for extremist views or behavior will become part of the vetting, said William K. Lietzau, who has led the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency since March 2020. Lietzau said several pilot programs are intended to help determine how useful it might be to track social-media activity in various ways. 

Gary Francis Poste was identified by volunteer investigative group The Case Breakers as a potential new suspect in the hunt for the Zodiac Killer, the serial killer who terrorised the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s. Because of the cryptic letters and ciphers the killer sent to authorities and The San Francisco Chronicle at the time, the case has long fascinated true crime aficionados and has been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, TV shows, and movies, most famous the David Fincher-directed dramatisation starring Robert Downey Jr and Jake Gyllenhaal. The Case Breakers reportedly identified Mr Poste, who died in 2018, through a series of photographs that they uncovered, dating back to 1963, supposedly from his “darkroom”, according to a press release issued by the group. They found photos that showed Mr Poste with supposed scars on his forehead that they believe matched marks shown on a police sketch of the Zodiac killer. A news clipping sourced by the group indicates that they believe the scars were the result of a car crash in 1959 in which an airman was killed and Mr Poste, also with the 782nd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, was injured. The group, which focuses on cold cases and consists of former law enforcement and forensics specialists, also claims to have forensic evidence including DNA, and further says that if you remove the letters of Mr Poste’s full name from one of the ciphers left by Zodiac, it reveals an alternate message, Fox News reports. Much of the Case Breakers’ reported evidence centres on linking Mr Poste to a murder in Riverside, California, that was connected to the Zodiac Killer in the mid-70s, but is now no longer considered by authorities to be connected.

Rachele Mussolini said she wanted nothing to do with the "burden" of her surname. The far-right politician insisted her success was because of her hard work, not her family history.

Salvatore Buzzi, who was convicted of Mafia crimes in 2017 says most of his friends will have to pay, but prosecutors pay double and judges pay triple.

With Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny imprisoned, a phalanx of fiery young communists is in the Kremlin’s firing line.

Oh hey it's something several of us have had recurring intrusive thoughts about

This is in a lawsuit to get Trump back on Twitter.

If you need to reach the Internal Revenue Service, your wait on hold will average about a half-hour, the tax agency says, noting that “some telephone service lines may have longer wait times.” In fact, most calls won’t even be answered. According to a recent report from the national taxpayer advocate, a steady string of Republican-led budget cuts means that of roughly 100 million calls to the IRS last year, only 24% were answered. “Put differently, IRS employees did not answer more than 75 million telephone calls from taxpayers seeking help in complying with their tax obligations,” said taxpayer advocate Erin M. Collins. This being the land of opportunity, an enterprising Florida company has come up with a solution — for a price. The company, called EnQ, swamps the IRS’ switchboard with its own calls, then sells desirable, time-saving slots near the head of the hold line to accountants and tax preparers willing to pay up to $1,000 a year. By subscribing to the line-cutting service, EnQ says, tax professionals trying to reach the IRS can slash their waits on hold by as much as 90%.

A five-day course of molnupiravir, the new medicine being hailed as a “huge advance” in the treatment of Covid-19, costs $17.74 to produce, according to a report issued last week by drug pricing experts at the Harvard School of Public Health and King’s College Hospital in London. Merck is charging the U.S. government $712 for the same amount of medicine, or 40 times the price. Last Friday’s announcement that the new medicine cut the risk of hospitalization among clinical trial participants with moderate or mild illness in half could have huge implications for the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Because it’s a pill — as opposed to monoclonal antibodies, a comparable antiviral treatment that is administered intravenously — molnupiravir is expected to be more widely used and, hopefully, will cut the death rate. In the first 29 days of the trial, no deaths were reported among the 385 patients who received the drug, while eight of the people who received a placebo died, according to the statement put out by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, the two companies that are jointly launching it. In addition to having huge implications for health, the pill could bring staggering profits to both Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. A small Miami-based company, Ridgeback licensed the medicine from Emory University in 2020 and two months later sold the worldwide rights to the drug to Merck for an undisclosed sum. Although Ridgeback remains involved in the development of the drug, some have described the deal as “flipping.” Like the vast majority of medicines on the market, molnupiravir — which was originally investigated as a possible treatment for Venezuelan equine encephalitis — was developed using government funds. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a division of the Department of Defense, provided more than $10 million of funding in 2013 and 2015 to Emory University, as research done by the nonprofit Knowledge Ecology International has revealed. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, also provided Emory with more than $19 million in additional grants. Yet only Merck and Ridgeback will reap the profits from the new antiviral, which according to Quartz could bring in as much as $7 billion by the end of this year. After the announcement of the encouraging clinical trial results on Friday, Merck’s stock price climbed, while stock prices of some vaccine makers sagged. Despite its initial investment, the U.S. government seems to be facing a steep markup in prices. In June, the government signed a $1.2 billion contract with Merck to supply 1.7 million courses of the medication at the $712 price. The transaction is due to take place as soon as molnupiravir receives emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

The company plans to tighten its grip on our everyday activities. We don’t have to just submit, says emerging technologies research fellow Jathan Sadowski

Republican leaders at the New Hampshire State House have refused to take action against a top GOP representative who shared a document with his colleagues that was riddled with conspiracy theories and anti-Catholic bigotry. Chairman of the House Fiscal Committee, Rep. Ken Weyler, came under fire for sharing the document with committee members. The document was called “vaccine death report.” The House Speaker and the Senate President, who serves on the fiscal committee with Rep. Ken Weyler had known about this document for 24 hours on Tuesday afternoon. They have ignored requests to answer questions about it. The document contains conspiracy theories but also features blatant anti-Catholicism, including an allegation that top church leaders worship Satan. The “report” alleges that multiple popes have answered to a hidden leader known as “The Grey Pope.”

A Cumberland man killed his brother and sister-in-law in their Ellicott City home last week because his brother, a pharmacist, administered COVID-19 vaccines, according to Howard County court documents.

The news comes as Gov. Newsom signed two bills on Thursday meant to keep officers who commit serious misconduct from jumping to other agencies.

They told a mother-in-law joke without realizing she was standing right behind them! :-D

Enbridge picked up the tab for police wages, training and equipment – and let county police know when it wanted demonstrators arrested

The Case Breakers' website says they are a team of  "crack investigators — from working millennials to retired octogenarians — with law enforcement, military, forensic, academic, legal and investigative skill sets."   The claim is speculative and should be taken with extreme doubt. One outlandish aspect of the claim that is difficult to verify involves the Case Breakers' source, who was allegedly "an outlaw-turned-whistleblower" who "tipped these developments to the team, led by retired FBI agents. The turncoat claims to have escaped from the Zodiac’s criminal 'posse,' roaming in the mountains for decades," the Case Breakers' website states.

Twitch is reportedly aware of the breach.

Florida transplant Eugene Bozzi went from driving for SEPTA to facing down wildlife.

A group of heroes calling themselves a "guerrilla activist art collective" defaced the billboards.