latimes--2019-08-22--Newsletter A Central Valley mans lifelong quest to build his own Chicano library

Newsletter: A Central Valley man's lifelong quest to build his own Chicano library

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California . It’s Thursday, Aug. 22, and I’m writing from Stockton.  History usually belongs to the conquerors, or the esteemed academics. But sometimes it also gets told by whoever most carefully corrals all the pieces and wrestles them into place.  The Chicano Research Center, a storefront library on a rundown stretch of Stockton’s east side, is the product of one Central Valley man’s obsessive, expansive quest.  Richard Soto, a 75-year-old, semi-retired educator, has spent the lion’s share of his life quietly building his collection of Chicano literature and history — first as a young man hungry to learn more about his own identity, and later with the dream of someday sharing it with the public like this.  He opened the Chicano Research Center as a nonprofit in 2016. All are welcome to come in, and Soto will probably offer you coffee at the door. He estimates that he has about 20,000 books, journals and ephemera (along with cases of corrido-filled CDs and LPs) housed in this former panaderia.  He built the bookshelves lining every inch of the room himself, with $3,000 worth of pine wood (including his 10% U.S. veteran discount) from Home Depot.  The library is organized according to the self-described “Soto” method, starting with indigenous history in the front corner of the room furthest from his desk, and wrapping all the way around to the present day, with labeled sections based on historical periods and events, individuals and other topics. (The library’s focus includes Mexican history as well as Mexican American history: “One of the things that I learned is that you can’t read Chicano literature, and appreciate and understand it if you don’t know Chicano Mexican history,” Soto explained.)  [See also: “Chicano Research Center is freeze-frame into the past” in the Stockton Record]  The walls are brightly punctuated with art, flags, and framed awards and accolades from Soto’s career as an educator, as well as a certificate honoring him for his bravery as a Brown Beret medic during the Chicano Moratorium.  Soto’s collecting quest began when he was a young man, just back from Vietnam and participating in the Chicano Movement. He went looking for the books that would speak to his story — as a Mexican American born in the United States — but the books he wanted didn’t seem to exist.  “I wanted to know what contributions had we made and what had we done,” Soto said. “And for me, I always wanted to know why people hated me. You know, I pretty much let people alone, but for some reason they had this, I don’t know, hereditary hatred for me.”  During his two years at San Joaquin Delta College, he “found all of maybe five books.” He went to Sacramento State and “found 10 more.” It was only when he left Sacramento for San Francisco that he started to really find what he was looking for, at a now-shuttered progressive bookstore called Modern Times in the Mission District.  After getting his master’s in counseling from San Francisco State, Soto returned to his Central Valley hometown of Tracy, where he worked as a high school counselor for nearly 40 years. He’d loan his students books to learn their history and build their self esteem, parceling out poetry or history or biography depending on what they seemed to need.  “There’s so much beautiful Mexican history. There are so many dynamic Mexican men and women, social political activists that have done something that is just not out there,” he said. “So, I started buying all this stuff.”  Time marched forward and all the while he quietly built his collection, bit by bit. He bought what he could, when he could and stored it where he could. “Everywhere I went, I created a room for all the books.”  When he officially retired, he took another full-time job teaching at an adult school. Suddenly, he had an income and a pension.  “I had a lot of extra money. So I thought man, I’m gonna really hit this,” he recalled. He would turn to the bibliographies in history books and mark off everything he already had, to see what was still missing. Then he would spend a few hours every morning on eBay, looking for discarded library books.  And finally, he found this space and carefully renovated it to house and share his glorious, sprawling collection.  “Most people, when they come here, they’re overwhelmed,” he said. “They can’t believe that something like this exists.”  And now, here’s what’s happening across California:  The Trump administration is moving to dismantle decades-old protections for immigrant youth, rolling out new regulations that would give the government the ability to indefinitely detain minors and families with children. President Trump and his aides have long railed against the so-called Flores agreement, the seminal 1997 court settlement that said the government must provide a minimum standard of care for migrant children in U.S. custody. The new regulations, expected to be formally published Friday, will take effect in 60 days, absent legal challenges. Los Angeles Times  San Francisco’s top officials met Wednesday afternoon to respond to a recent series of violent altercations along the city’s northern waterfront. The group included Mayor London Breed and the heads of the police, health and homelessness departments. They plan to indefinitely beef up foot patrols and social services outreach in the Embarcadero after two more people were attacked this week. (Despite the recent attacks, violent crime remains down in San Francisco.) San Francisco Chronicle  Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who made climate change his key issue, is ending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Los Angeles Times  For the first time, the Los Angeles Police Commission will have a woman leading the oversight panel of one of the nation’s largest police forces. Los Angeles Times  The L.A. County D.A. has dropped charges against the man who allegedly stole Frances McDormand’s Best Actress Oscar statuette in 2018. It remains unclear why the criminal case was suddenly dropped. Deadline Hollywood  History forgot these female composers. An L.A. music writer is helping us remember. Los Angeles Times  As summertime wanes, our City Beat columnist delivers a personal ode to the lasting benefits of taking a vacation and fully unplugging from the city and gadgets. Los Angeles Times  Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. .  Assemblyman Todd Gloria has taken control of San Diego’s mayoral race after winning the Democratic Party’s endorsement. Per the Voice of San Diego, the “party’s endorsement is potentially pivotal because the race so far includes only Democrats, and registered Democrats in the city outnumber registered Republicans by nearly two to one.” Voice of San Diego  An anti-vaccine activist was cited for assault by the Sacramento Police Department on Wednesday after he livestreamed a physical confrontation with state Sen. Richard Pan, author of legislation to restrict vaccine exemptions. Los Angeles Times  A California lawmaker asked Twitter: What does “Republican” mean to you? Chad Mayes, a Republican state lawmaker who represents the Coachella Valley in the California Assembly, got more than 10,000 replies. The Desert Sun  Police in Long Beach thwarted a possible mass shooting this week when they arrested a disgruntled hotel cook they say threatened to carry out violence at his workplace. Los Angeles Times  The owner of a popular San Francisco truffle shop was attacked by a stranger outside his store. The store proprietor was rescued by his 13-year-old son, who heard his father yelling for help and came out with a bat to scare the attacker off. SFGATE  As megafires become the new normal, the tools and techniques capable of stopping them remain elusive. But prescribed burns could help prevent those megafires. So why aren’t we doing more of them? New Yorker  Is California too rich to get help from FEMA during the next deadly disaster? New guidelines that tighten eligibility for federal disaster recovery programs worry emergency planners. Sacramento Bee  The ShakeAlert early warning system will be expanding to Lake Tahoe with new federal earthquake funds. Sacramento Bee  Federal officials suppressed a lengthy environmental document that details how one of California’s unique salmon runs would be imperiled by Trump administration plans to deliver more water to Central Valley farms. Los Angeles Times  Red light cameras will soon be reactivated in Sacramento County. Sacramento Bee  San Mateo cops have been sleeping in their cars to avoid an hours-long commute at the end of a 12-hour shift. The city plans to convert a portion of an old fire station into a sleeping barracks for far-flung officers who can’t afford the extremely expensive housing in the area. San Francisco Chronicle  A proposal to build an affordable housing complex in San Jose for low-income and formerly homeless elderly residents is facing backlash from neighbors who worry it will bring more crime and traffic to south San Jose. Mercury News  There will be free admission to Joshua Tree and Yosemite national parks this Sunday as the National Park Service celebrates its 103rd birthday with free entrance to sites nationwide that typically charge a fee. The Desert Sun  The ultimate mapo tofu recipe has a California twist on the classic Sichuan dish. Los Angeles Times  The 100-foot neon swirl sign at the Montclair Plaza mall in San Bernardino County has come down. San Bernardino Sun  Los Angeles: sunny, 84. San Diego: sunny, 72. San Francisco: partly sunny, 72. San Jose: sunny, 86. Sacramento: partly sunny, 99. More weather is here.  “I remember a TV newscaster saying that there were only 29 smog-free days in L.A. and they came the day after it rained; that the rain washed away the smog and other particles in the air. He was right. I could see from the roof of my home the Santa Monica mountains and all the way to the San Bernardino mountains. I could see the snow. And the air smelled fresh and clean. As a Santa Barbara resident today, when I come to L.A. I’m impressed by how clean the air has become, how great the views, and how much I appreciate all the regulations that made it happen…. I was one of those kids that was particularly susceptible to coughing and itching and had to go indoors often — except those 29 days I got to play outside.”  If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)  Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter .


mercurynews--2019-04-07--Saratoga community briefs for the week of April 12

Friends of the Libraries will host “Friends Sharing Books” April 15. Formerly known as “Blind Date with a Book,” the event brings together book lovers to talk about a book they’ve enjoyed in small groups and to hear what others say about the books they recommend.  At the end of the event, set for 10-11:30 a.m. in the Saratoga Library’s community room, participants will receive a list of books discussed, along with a specially wrapped book from the Book-Go-Round, the used bookstore run by the Friends of the Libraries.  The Santa Clara County Fire Department is hosting a series of community wildfire meetings, including one in Saratoga on April 18.  The meetings will focus on steps residents can take to “be ready,” by creating defensible space and hardening their homes; “get set” by developing an emergency plan; and “go” in case red flag fire weather forces evacuations.  The Saratoga meeting is set for 6:30-8 p.m. at the Joan Pisani Community Center, 19655 Allendale Ave. For more information, visit www.sccfd.org/RSG.  The Santa Clara County Library District this month is holding a second round of its Food for Fines program, in which patrons can waive up to $100 in fines and fees in exchange for a non-perishable food donation of any amount for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.  Saratoga Library patrons can bring their food donations to the library’s accounts desk during normal business hours to have up to $100 in fines and fees waived. A list of most needed and allowable food donations can be found at www.sccl.org/foodforfines.

disaster, accident and emergency incident


naturalnews--2019-09-18--Iran drone attack on Saudi oil facilities should concern Americans What happens when opposing forc

Iran drone attack on Saudi oil facilities should concern Americans: What happens when “opposing forces” in the U.S. attack American facilities the same way?

(Natural News) As of this writing, the Trump administration has blamed Iran for the drone and cruise missile attack against a major Saudi Arabian oil refinery, though not “officially.” What’s more, the administration has yet to decide how it will handle the attack if, in fact, Iran is the guilty party, as many believe it is.  As one analyst notes, the fate of the global economy is literally at stake: Should a major Middle East war break out between the two well-armed countries, their proxies, and their allies, most assuredly oil infrastructure would be targeted because it is the greatest source of income for both and, thus, the economic driver behind the war effort. It would make sense, strategically, to target such assets.  But oil produced by both countries is not consumed by both countries. Oil is a global commodity and has been for many decades; how would the world handle a major years-long disruption in oil supplies from two of the globe’s most prolific producers?  Badly, to say the least. But the scenario could get much worse.  President Trump and others have said that the U.S. could become a net oil exporter by next year. In fact, reports note that the U.S. is on pace to become the world’s No. 1 oil producer, ahead of the Saudis.  The U.S. economy is much more diverse than that of Saudi Arabia and Iran, so it is a lot more resilient, too. However, we all depend on oil — fossil fuels — to power our countries and our economic engines.  So what would happen if our own oil refineries were targeted by foreign entities or worse, domestic anarchists?  Sponsored solution from the Health Ranger Store: Lab-verified Nascent Iodine solution is a dietary supplement that provides your body with supplemental iodine to help protect your thyroid during radiation exposure. Nuclear accidents such as Fukushima (or nuclear war) can expose your body to radioactive iodine-131, a dangerous radioisotope. Pre-loading your system with stable iodine occupies the iodine receptor sites on your organs, causing your body to naturally expel radioactive iodine you may have been exposed to through air, food, water or milk products. This defensive strategy is recommended by nearly all health authorities, worldwide, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Discover more at this link.  Granted, they wouldn’t have access to cruise missiles that require satellite guidance in order to hit their targets (without having them supplied by a capable foreign power). But surely some industrious domestic terrorists, rebels, and anarchists could find a way to deliver explosives to American refineries — at least once before the government began protecting them.  After all, the 9/11 attacks occurred once. It’s a vulnerability that emergency planners around the country have likely considered but may have yet implemented defensive or detection methods. After all, how does a civilian oil refinery get a hold of a Patriot air defense system? Or laser weapons?  They don’t, of course. Not yet, anyway. So they’re still vulnerable.  We’re not the only Western country concerned about attacks on our oil infrastructure, either. As the Financial Post reports, the Canadians are now, suddenly, increasingly concerned about the safety and security of their largest facility:  Canada may hold the world’s third-largest crude reserves, but that’s little help to its largest refinery after a weekend attack disrupted production in Saudi Arabia, its biggest oil supplier.  Much of the vulnerability to the Irving Oil Ltd.’s Saint John plant is a disruption of supply from the Saudis. But security is an issue too.  In November 2007, 12 years ago roughly, a paper by Homeland Security Today examined the effects of fallout from a terrorist attack on “the little known” oil facility in Cushing, Okla. “on the global oil economy.” The plant is “arguably the most important oil infrastructure in North America given the impact its destruction would have.”  The point of the paper was to examine the security of the Cushing facility, which even “former CIA Director James Woolsey, an adviser to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, admitted” was lacking. In fact, he described the facility as a “soft target.”  We have elements within our country who would love nothing more than to start an internal conflict that would take us down several notches, never stopping to think that without America guarding freedom, half the world would blow up if we were to engage in a civil conflict.  Our oil infrastructure would also no doubt be targeted, especially if the ‘rebels’ were Left-wing environmental wackos who hate fossil fuels as it is.


naturalnews--2019-10-12--What is normalcy bias and how does it affect your survival rate when SHTF?

This is called normalcy bias, which is “the phenomenon of disbelieving one’s situation when faced with grave and imminent danger and/or catastrophe.” A prime example of this would be the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Citizens of Pompeii paid little attention to the earthquakes that day because seismic activity was quite common in the area. Sadly, the people were unprepared for the massive eruption that followed.  Normalcy bias, while part of human nature, is dangerous in terms of dealing with a disaster. Being unprepared in an event “that shouldn’t happen here” could lead to loss of life and property.  The threat of natural disasters isn’t enough to cause people to go out of their way to prepare. A poll done by Healthcare Ready found that 54 percent of Americans are aware of the possibility of being affected by natural disasters, yet 51 percent do not have any emergency plan in place.  “More Americans expect that a major disaster will impact them or their family than in previous years, but we’ve not seen an increase in household emergency planning alongside this awareness,” said Nicolette Louissaint, Ph.D., executive director of Healthcare Ready. “For the fourth year in a row, this poll reveals a gap in preparedness at an individual level and emphasizes the need to improve readiness to ensure residents are prepared for the disasters that will inevitably come.”  Sponsored solution from the Health Ranger Store: Lab-verified Nascent Iodine solution is a dietary supplement that provides your body with supplemental iodine to help protect your thyroid during radiation exposure. Nuclear accidents such as Fukushima (or nuclear war) can expose your body to radioactive iodine-131, a dangerous radioisotope. Pre-loading your system with stable iodine occupies the iodine receptor sites on your organs, causing your body to naturally expel radioactive iodine you may have been exposed to through air, food, water or milk products. This defensive strategy is recommended by nearly all health authorities, worldwide, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Discover more at this link.  The U.S. is host to a variety of weather events that occur almost on a yearly basis. There’s the infamous Tornado alley, as well as the threat of hurricanes in coastal regions. The Midwest is also quite prone to flooding. Technological advancements over the decades have allowed humans to predict when and where these natural disasters could happen, yet warning signs still fall on deaf ears. (Related: Ridding yourself of “normalcy bias”: Why we should take warning signs seriously.)  “As the harsh realities of disaster become clearer and more frequent than ever before, we must use these learnings to pinpoint the most pressing needs within our communities ahead of time. The data shows how little time most Americans have before they face a medical crisis. This critical time should be spent implementing effective response and recovery protocols that can address dire medical needs we will see during a crisis,” said Louissaint.  One of the biggest hurdles that people with normalcy bias may face is the fact that they are the ones caught unaware in the middle of a disaster. Rather than prepare for what’s coming, they would much rather think along the lines of “It won’t be that bad” or “Nothing will happen here.” But in reality, the only thing crossing their minds when SHTF is “How could this happen to me?”  Instead of evacuating ahead of time or preparing supplies for the upcoming disaster, they would rather point fingers and ask why nobody is helping them.  Normalcy bias is a true threat not only to your own safety, but of those around you as well. The more you dive deep into this mindset, the lesser chances you have of surviving. Always prepare for the worst and if you ever encounter someone with this mindset, try to do your best to talk them out of it and help them survive.


newsbusters--2019-06-03--Maddow Defending Abortion Is Like the Underground Railroad

Maddow: Defending Abortion Is Like the Underground Railroad?

Pro-life legislation being passed in states across the country has caused much media panicking. In Missouri, where currently one Planned Parenthood abortion clinic remains, all out hysteria of a “dystopian and radical” future was fed by MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow Friday night. The far-left host seemed to compare preserving abortion access to freeing slaves via the Underground Railroad.      To begin, M’evie Mead, the director of Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri, explained the dire nature of the situation stating; “There will be an emergency plan to help patients access health care outside of the state.”        Maddow clarified the end-time prepping narrative with an apparent reference to the underground railroad; “What you are describing there in terms of the emergency plan, if there needs to be a railroad effort in Missouri to try to help women get out of state to get to places where they can access abortion care because they can’t get it anywhere in the state…”  She then continued: “In addition to seeming dystopian and radical, it also sounds really expensive.” Though the future is pretty bleak for the pro-choicers, it’s a good thing they were all born to continue trumpeting their dissent.      Mead responded “…Yes, there are financial burdens that people will bear…” but made sure to bring the conversation around to the important point saying; “This is a safe, legal, common, medical procedure, and we should not be erecting these tremendous barriers because they have a negative impact on people’s lives.” Ironically, they have a positive impact on thousands of fetus’ lives, but of course, according to MSNBC, a fetus isn’t living…now that would be ‘radical.’  Here is the transcript from the May 31 episode of The Rachel Maddow Show:  M’EVIE MEAD [DIRECTOR, PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATES MISSOURI]: There will be an emergency plan to help patients access health care outside of the state. But people do need to know that already Missourians are facing tremendous challenges. We know those challenges impact people further away from the urban areas, so rural Missourians, people with lower incomes, with less ability and flexibility to move across state lines and take the time, the child care, the days off work to access abortion. So what the governor is doing is absolutely negatively impacting all Missourians. Certainly the most vulnerable are the hardest hit.     RACHEL MADDOW: What you’re describing um, you mentioned the legal fight and the expense around the legal fight. What you are describing there in terms of the emergency plan, if there needs to be a railroad effort in Missouri to try to help women get out of state to get to places where they can access abortion care because they can't get it anywhere in the state, in addition to seeming dystopian and radical, it also sounds really expensive. It sounds like you are already in a very expensive fight right now and it sounds like the future might be expensive, particularly if the court succeeds in shutting you down. Is that right for me to discern that?      MEAD: Yeah. There is significant costs all around. As I said, yes, there are financial burdens that people will bear and that I want to say that I'm super appreciative of all the folks who have stepped up and tried to increase their ability to donate or give. But I think the most important cost and the ones that we want to center are the negative impacts on people's lives. This is a safe, legal common medical procedure, and we should not be erecting these tremendous barriers because they have negative consequences on people’s lives.


newsweek--2019-02-12--San Andreas Fault Will Probably Produce a Major Earthquake by 2045The Clock is Ticking

San Andreas Fault Will Probably Produce a Major Earthquake by 2045—The Clock is Ticking

California earthquakes are a geologic inevitability. The state straddles the North American and Pacific tectonic plates and is crisscrossed by the San Andreas and other active fault systems. The magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck off Alaska’s Kodiak Island on January 23, 2018 was just another reminder of major seismic activity along the Pacific Rim.  Tragic quakes that occurred in 2017 near the Iran-Iraq border and in central Mexico, with magnitudes of 7.3 and 7.1, respectively, are well within the range of earthquake sizes that have a high likelihood of occurring in highly populated parts of California during the next few decades.  The earthquake situation in California is actually more dire than people who aren’t seismologists like myself may realize. Although many Californians can recount experiencing an earthquake, most have never personally experienced a strong one. For major events, with magnitudes of seven or greater, California is actually in an earthquake drought. Multiple segments of the expansive San Andreas Fault system are now sufficiently stressed to produce large and damaging events.  The good news is that earthquake readiness is part of the state’s culture, and earthquake science is advancing—including much improved simulations of large quake effects and development of an early warning system for the Pacific coast.  California occupies a central place in the history of seismology. The April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake (magnitude 7.8) was pivotal to both earthquake hazard awareness and the development of earthquake science—including the fundamental insight that earthquakes arise from faults that abruptly rupture and slip. The San Andreas Fault slipped by as much as 20 feet in this earthquake.  Although ground-shaking damage was severe in many places along the nearly 310-mile fault rupture, much of San Francisco was actually destroyed by the subsequent fire, due to the large number of ignition points and a breakdown in emergency services. That scenario continues to haunt earthquake response planners. Consider what might happen if a major earthquake were to strike Los Angeles during fire season.  When a major earthquake occurs anywhere on the planet, modern global seismographic networks and rapid response protocols now enable scientists, emergency responders and the public to assess it quickly—typically, within tens of minutes or less—including location, magnitude, ground motion and estimated casualties and property losses. And by studying the buildup of stresses along mapped faults, past earthquake history, and other data and modeling, we can forecast likelihoods and magnitudes of earthquakes over long time periods in California and elsewhere.  However, the interplay of stresses and faults in the Earth is dauntingly chaotic. And even with continuing advances in basic research and ever-improving data, laboratory and theoretical studies, there are no known reliable and universal precursory phenomena to suggest that the time, location and size of individual large earthquakes can be predicted.  Major earthquakes thus typically occur with no immediate warning whatsoever, and mitigating risks requires sustained readiness and resource commitments. This can pose serious challenges, since cities and nations may thrive for many decades or longer without experiencing major earthquakes.  The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was the last quake greater than magnitude seven to occur on the San Andreas Fault system. The inexorable motions of plate tectonics mean that every year, strands of the fault system accumulate stresses that correspond to a seismic slip of millimeters to centimeters. Eventually, these stresses will be released suddenly in earthquakes.  But the central-southern stretch of the San Andreas Fault has not slipped since 1857, and the southernmost segment may not have ruptured since 1680. The highly urbanized Hayward Fault in the East Bay region has not generated a major earthquake since 1868.  Reflecting this deficit, the Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast estimates that there is a 93 percent probability of a 7.0 or larger earthquake occurring in the Golden State region by 2045, with the highest probabilities occurring along the San Andreas Fault system.  California’s population has grown more than 20-fold since the 1906 earthquake and currently is close to 40 million. Many residents and all state emergency managers are widely engaged in earthquake readiness and planning. These preparations are among the most advanced in the world.  For the general public, preparations include participating in drills like the Great California Shakeout, held annually since 2008, and preparing for earthquakes and other natural hazards with home and car disaster kits and a family disaster plan.  No California earthquake since the 1933 Long Beach event (6.4) has killed more than 100 people. Quakes in 1971 (San Fernando, 6.7); 1989 (Loma Prieta; 6.9); 1994 (Northridge; 6.7); and 2014 (South Napa; 6.0) each caused more than $1bn in property damage, but fatalities in each event were, remarkably, dozens or less. Strong and proactive implementation of seismically informed building codes and other preparations and emergency planning in California saved scores of lives in these medium-sized earthquakes. Any of them could have been disastrous in less-prepared nations.  Nonetheless, California’s infrastructure, response planning and general preparedness will doubtlessly be tested when the inevitable and long-delayed “big ones” occur along the San Andreas Fault system. Ultimate damage and casualty levels are hard to project, and hinge on the severity of associated hazards such as landslides and fires.  Several nations and regions now have or are developing earthquake early warning systems, which use early detected ground motion near a quake’s origin to alert more distant populations before strong seismic shaking arrives. This permits rapid responses that can reduce infrastructure damage. Such systems provide warning times of up to tens of seconds in the most favorable circumstances, but the notice will likely be shorter than this for many California earthquakes.  Early warning systems are operational now in Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and Romania. Systems in California and the Pacific Northwest are presently under development with early versions in operation. Earthquake early warning is by no means a panacea for saving lives and property, but it represents a significant step toward improving earthquake safety and awareness along the West Coast.  Managing earthquake risk requires a resilient system of social awareness, education and communications, coupled with effective short and long-term responses and implemented within an optimally safe built environment. As California prepares for large earthquakes after a hiatus of more than a century, the clock is ticking.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.  The views expressed in this article are the author's own.


newyorkpost--2019-09-09--Do your best to prepare for the worst

Do your best to prepare for the worst

Where did you go after Superstorm Sandy? What did you do during the 2003 blackout? Were you in danger? Were you prepared? Reliving these emergency situations isn’t easy, but making an emergency plan is.  It may feel odd to prepare for an event that you hope never occurs, but when it comes to potential natural disasters, acts of terror and other emergencies, it’s much better to be safe than sorry. If one of these disasters strikes, what will you and your loved ones do? Where will you go? Don’t get stuck without anything to eat — or any way to pass the time — if the power goes out.  September is National Preparedness Month, and the New York Post and NYC Emergency Management encourage all New Yorkers to have a plan in the event of an emergency. This handy guide will help you and your family better prepare for a worst-case scenario.  You’re already constantly on your phone anyway, so stay informed between swipes and taps. Sign up for Notify NYC — the city’s official emergency communications program — to receive important city updates and emergency alerts.  The Ready NYC app allows users to create an emergency plan and to have it readily available should disaster strike. This app allows you to input health information, identify meeting spots, whom to call, what to pack and much more.  Focus on taking the necessary steps to create a plan that will keep you, your family, friends and community safe should disaster strike. NYC Emergency Management offers tailored plans for everyone, from children and seniors to those with disabilities.  Set a meeting place for you and your loved ones should an emergency happen, like a library or a place of worship. Identify all possible exit routes from your home and neighborhood and ensure that your family is aware of them, and have copies of your emergency plan printed out and kept safely in a place where your entire household can find them.  Know when to go (evacuate) and when to stay (shelter in place). City officials will inform you what to do in a given scenario. Designated routes to get people to higher, safer ground during storms have been identified throughout the city. You can use the Hurricane Evacuation Zone Finder to educate yourself and your loved ones about whether you live in an evacuation zone.  Storms can sometimes come without warning, and if an order to shelter in place goes into effect, you don’t want to get caught in a last-minute mob at the grocery store. Stock up ahead of time! Make sure you have any essentials on hand that you and your loved ones may need.  If you have power, stay tuned for alerts. Should power fail, a hand-crank or battery-powered radio will do the trick. Non-perishable food, extra bottles of water, flashlights and batteries are just a few of the items that will help keep you safe and your spirits high. Keep these stored in a closet or cellar. If you have kids, add a few sweet treats, a deck of cards, stuffed animals or a board game. These items can help keep your kids happy and distract them from the emergency taking place.  Create a Go Bag to take with you should evacuation become necessary. Gather copies of important documents, cash in small bills, and a first aid kit. Here are just a few of the other items you should have on hand:  Remember, pets need Go Bags too! Make sure you have a current color photo of you and your pet should you get separated. To keep those tails wagging, you’ll also need a bag with food and water for at least three days for your furry friends, an animal first aid kid, comforting toys or treats, plastic bags for cleanup, and food/water dishes. Treat your pet like you would your child — have plenty of supplies to keep them fed and occupied.  When disaster strikes, be a leader. Plan accordingly so you can take a role in helping your neighbors and community. You can sign up for a CPR certification course or fire safety training so you can help others before emergency responders arrive.  You can also join the New York City Community Emergency Response Team (NYC CERT) volunteer program to learn how to support the efforts of NYC’s first responders. If you don’t have the time to devote to volunteering, simply donating blood can make a huge difference. New York City needs approximately 2,000 people to donate blood every day to maintain its supply, and should a disaster strike, the amount can increase tenfold.  Having the right insurance can help you in a disaster. If you rent your home, renter’s insurance will insure the items inside your apartment. If you own, the proper homeowner’s insurance can help with flood and wind damage not typically covered by a basic homeowner’s policy. To counteract possible weather-related damage, reduce your risk by building with flood damage-resistant materials such as cast-in-place concrete, concrete blocks, or solid structural wood. Always be sure to trim branches and remove trees on your property that could potentially fall on homes or nearby power lines.  Money isn’t the only thing you should save! The best way to prepare for a disaster is by organizing your finances before it occurs. Store your important financial documents in a waterproof, fireproof container — these can include mortgages, leases, bank statements, tax returns and insurance information. Stash some cash in small bills to have in case ATMs aren’t working, and store cans of non-perishable food in the event you need to shelter in place.  You never know when a disaster will strike. Now is the time to take steps toward being prepared for the unexpected. Visit NYC.gov/emergencymanagement or call 311 to learn more today!


npr--2019-01-17--25 Years After The Northridge Earthquake Is LA Ready For The Big One

25 Years After The Northridge Earthquake, Is LA Ready For The Big One?

A bulldozer begins to tear down a section of the Santa Monica Freeway that collapsed during the Northridge earthquake, 25 years ago. Despite lessons learned from that earthquake, LA is far from prepared for the next big one. **Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images** ****hide caption****  ****toggle caption****  Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images  A bulldozer begins to tear down a section of the Santa Monica Freeway that collapsed during the Northridge earthquake, 25 years ago. Despite lessons learned from that earthquake, LA is far from prepared for the next big one.  Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images  Twenty five years ago, at 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1994, the Northridge earthquake shook Angelenos from their beds. For those of us who lived through it, the memories of chaos early in the morning are unforgettable.  "We were just literally startled awake by a freight train driving right through our bedroom," said my father, Mark Margolis, who along with my sister, my mother and myself, was sleeping just about seven miles from the epicenter. "I mean the blinds that were supposed to be hanging vertical were like out horizontal. So, there was a tremendous amount of movement."  I was only five, and remember being pulled from my bed into the dark hallway by my parents. Our house was trashed, with everything from our shelves and inside our refrigerator thrown to the ground.  I mean the blinds that were supposed to be hanging vertical were like out horizontal. So, there was a tremendous amount of movement.  Mark Margolis, Los Angeles resident  After things calmed down, we walked outside. I remember dark silhouettes of my neighbors milling about, trying to figure out what to do, just as dawn began to break and aftershocks rolled through.  When the sun rose, everyone was able to take stock of the damage.  The 6.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed freeways and buildings, cracked streets and left swaths of Los Angeles without power for a period of time.  "I remember driving down one of the main streets and there was like water coming up from the ... street because there were broken gas lines as well as broken water lines. There was water, but there were also flames coming out of the water," my dad said. "So, burning water ... I mean how often do you see that?"  At least 57 people died and $40 billion in damage was done.  Many Angelenos were displaced for a period of time. Some people were lucky enough to stay with family and friends. Some had to live for days in parks as the structural integrity of their buildings was assessed.  **Prepared for the next one?**  Every time an earthquake hits, we learn new things about just how unprepared we are.  Since Northridge, building codes have improved and retrofit programs for hospitals, apartments and freeways have been implemented. The hope is that those improvements leave us safer. But Southern California hasn't had an earthquake strong enough to test the region in earnest anytime since.  A National Guardsman stands guard outside the ruins of the Northridge Meadows Apartments where 16 people died during the January 1994 earthquake that rocked Southern California. Since then, many of these kinds of apartments have been retrofitted to withstand a large quake. **TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images** ****hide caption****  ****toggle caption****  TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images  A National Guardsman stands guard outside the ruins of the Northridge Meadows Apartments where 16 people died during the January 1994 earthquake that rocked Southern California. Since then, many of these kinds of apartments have been retrofitted to withstand a large quake.  TIM CLARY/AFP/Getty Images  About 7,000 miles of water pipes are currently being retrofitted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, so that they don't crack in an earthquake. That could mean contamination or complete loss of water to homes. Craig Davis, the Water System Resilience Program Manager, said that it will take 120 years to fix the entire system.  According to seismologists, an earthquake far bigger than Northridge could hit at anytime.  Dr. Lucile Jones was the lead author on a 2008 report called "[The ShakeOut Scenario](https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1150/)" for the U.S. Geological Survey. In it, they describe a theoretical but likely earthquake: A 7.8 magnitude temblor on the southern San Andreas fault that would be 44 times stronger than Northridge.  The report estimates that if that earthquake occurs, 1,800 people could die, buildings could collapse, an estimated $200 billion in damage could be done and conflagrations could break out.  "Northridge was an event that disrupted the lives of people in the San Fernando Valley extensively ... disrupted our community for a year or two," Dr. Jones said. "The big San Andreas earthquake is going to disrupt the lives of everybody in Southern California and it could take us decades to recover what we lose."  LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has worked with Jones to implement various programs designed to improve the city's [resilience](http://100resilientcities.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/03/Los-Angeles-Resilience-Strategy-PDF.pdf). "We're better prepared for the big one than any big city in America," he says, "which is to say, we're woefully unprepared."  Limited water and overwhelmed emergency services after a big quake hits could mean large fires spreading quickly throughout the hills and neighborhoods, according to Jones. Mark Ghilarducci, director of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, said it could take 48 to 72 hours for outside help to arrive in Southern California. Meaning, 10 million people should expect to be largely on their own for a few days after the disaster.  There is some good news: "Most of the time under most circumstances ... you're going to see people become the best version, the most altruistic version of themselves, especially in those first couple of minutes and moments after the event," said Joe Trainor, who studies disasters and crisis at the University of Delaware.  That said, to survive a major earthquake, it's important that [people take steps to prepare](https://laist.com/2019/01/07/the_big_one_earthquake_surivival_guide_101_how_to.php). Stock up on water, food, medicine and make sure that there's some alternate form of shelter in case homes are unlivable. Everyone who lives in an earthquake zone should have some sort of emergency plan in place and coordinate that plan with friends and family.  _This story comes from the producers and host of a new podcast, "_[The Big One - Your Survival Guide.](https://the-big-one.scpr.org/)"


npr--2019-04-18--Tiny Earthquakes Happen Every Few Minutes In Southern California Study Finds

Tiny Earthquakes Happen Every Few Minutes In Southern California, Study Finds  Detecting very small earthquakes is notoriously difficult. The churning of the ocean, a passing car or even the wind can feel a lot like a minor quake to the sensors that blanket seismically active parts of the U.S.  That's a problem for scientists who rely on data about all the earthquakes in a region to study what triggers the biggest, most destructive ones.  Now, a team of scientists says it has found a way to accurately detect tiny earthquakes, and it has published a new, more comprehensive list of quakes that occurred over a recent 10-year period in Southern California. The work was published Thursday in the journal Science.  The team relied on data from a network of about 400 seismic sensors in California, spread from the U.S.-Mexico border up through the southern part of the state. Those sensors continuously measure movement in the Earth's crust, looking for evidence of quakes. During the decade from 2008 to 2017, scientists had already identified 180,000 earthquakes in the region.  "They have a robust seismic network in Southern California," explains Daniel Trugman, a seismologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an author of the study. But while 180,000 might seem like a large number of quakes, there were many, many more hiding undetected in the data.  When Trugman and his collaborators re-analyzed the data using a powerful array of computer processors, they found evidence of 10 times as many earthquakes — 1.81 million temblors in a decade, or roughly one tiny earthquake every three minutes or so.  "You don't feel them happening all the time," Trugman says. But "they're happening all the time."  Most quakes detected in the study are so small, their magnitude falls below zero. It's not impossible for humans to feel such subtle trembling in the rock beneath our feet, but it is unlikely. Trugman equates it to a table being kicked over in your kitchen. If you are standing in the kitchen when it happens, you'll notice the table hitting the ground. But if you're up the street when it happens, or even just outside, you're likely to miss it.  To detect the tiny quakes without mistaking them for nonquake vibrations (like a passing truck), Trugman and scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Diego used computers to search a decade's worth of data for patterns that resembled known earthquakes.  The analysis was made possible by advances in computer processors over the past decade or so. Even so, it took tens of thousands of hours for a group of 200 graphics processors housed at Caltech — basically souped-up versions of the graphics cards in laptop computers — to search through all the data and pinpoint potential quakes, and hundreds of thousands of hours more for other computers to finish the analysis.  The ability to measure more, smaller earthquakes will hopefully help scientists answer some of the most intriguing questions about how, where and why earthquakes happen.  In California, many communities rely on fault maps showing where earthquakes are most likely to happen to help make decisions about infrastructure, building codes and emergency plans. Having more complete information about quakes in the region could make those maps more complete and could help identify what are known as blind faults, which aren't visible on the surface but have the potential to shift underground.  A blind thrust fault was responsible for the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Southern California that killed more than 50 people, injured thousands of others and caused billions of dollars in damage. In fact, the network of seismic sensors that made the new study possible was put in place in the aftermath of that disaster.  It also might be possible to use data from similar sensor networks in other parts of the U.S. — for example, in the Pacific Northwest — to create more comprehensive catalogs of quakes in those regions.  The study's authors hope to use the data to look at how large earthquakes are triggered and what role small earthquakes play in that process. Understanding that complex relationship could eventually help seismologists predict earthquakes.  "We're going to be looking at a lot of these questions in a lot more detail," says lead author Zachary Ross, a geophysicist at Caltech.  "The holy grail of earthquake seismology has always been prediction," explains Trugman. In recent years, for example, the U.S. government has rolled out an earthquake warning system along the West Coast, which uses the same networks of sensors that scientists are studying. Having a deeper understanding of the seismic information that is fed into that early alert system could help make it more accurate.  "I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll make progress on earthquake prediction," Trugman says.


npr--2019-11-01--California's Preemptive Blackouts Put A Strain On People With Home Medical Needs

California's Preemptive Blackouts Put A Strain On People With Home Medical Needs  Fern Brown, 81, sat in the rear of a tent on the windswept fairgrounds of the historic Gold Rush town of Auburn, Calif., this week, drawing deep breaths through the mouthpiece of a nebulizer plugged into a power strip atop a plastic folding table.  Afflicted for years with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Brown uses the nebulizer twice a day to avoid flare-ups that can be life-threatening. It turns her medicine into a fine mist that she can inhale.  Her machine runs on electricity, and when Pacific Gas & Electric Co. shuts off the power in the region amid wildfire scares, as it did earlier this week, Brown must scramble to find a place where she can administer her treatment.  She knows the makeshift "resource center" she visited on Tuesday afternoon, one of several set up by PG&E, is not a viable long-term fix ― especially now that this month's power outages and the uncertainty that comes with them seem likely to be a more frequent feature of California's fall fire season.  "I could rent a generator. Or can you rent to own?" Brown asked. "They're expensive. But that's probably what I'll do. We just want to be ready for the next time."  "That is the real travesty of this PG&E plan," said Sandy Jay, a nurse practitioner at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Sonoma County, about 130 miles southwest of Auburn. "As the dominoes fall, it's the poor and the disabled who are the most affected by this."  Jay supervises a program that for 20 years has sent teams of workers throughout the Santa Rosa area to bring medicine and treatment to those whose conditions prevent them from leaving home or keep them bedbound.  Without power, though, almost all of those patients need help immediately, she said. Air-pumped mattresses, used to prevent chronic bedsores, begin to deflate. Ventilators and nebulizers cease to function. Electric wheelchairs don't respond. And many of the affected people are reachable only by landline telephones, which aren't all reliable when the power's out.  "It's just kind of unconscionable," Jay said.  Hardened by experience of shut-offs imposed by their utility company, many residents of this region ― and others up and down the state ― have concluded they must prepare for future power cuts.  PG&E confirmed that notion in an emailed statement, saying all its customers should "have an emergency plan to be prepared for any extended outages due to extreme weather or natural disasters." Extended outages, even planned ones, can mean up to a week without electricity, Californians in some areas have been dismayed to discover.  PG&E's statement referred customers to the utility's website page on wildfire safety, adding that local county emergency offices may also offer help.  The PG&E outages that have affected some 1.8 million Californians in the past few weeks, amid nerve-wracking warnings of wind and fire, have only affirmed the company's message.  For those with home medical needs, the quest for a durable fix has taken on real urgency.  Steve Bast, who lives in a rural section of Auburn in the Sierra foothills, has Type 2 diabetes, and his insulin needs to be refrigerated. Bast has been forced to deal with previous outages, both weather-related and PG&E-driven, some lasting several days.  Now, he said, he keeps ice packs in his freezer and puts them on the insulin containers as soon as his power goes down. He then stores the medication inside a soft cooler that zips closed and goes back in the refrigerator for as long as the unit remains cold.  Bast also uses a CPAP machine for his sleep apnea, and it must be plugged in, so he said his next move is to buy a small, personal generator. He notes however, that he would still need to find an open gas station for fuel to keep the generator running during an outage. Gas stations rely on electricity to run their pumps.  Then there's the cost: A personal generator sells for between $400 and $1,000, meaning it could be out of reach for people of limited means.  PG&E's temporary resource centers, of the type Fern Brown visited, are small, tented areas where up to 100 people at a time can power up devices of all kinds and get free bags of ice, cases of water and snacks. The centers are set up when an area is plunged into a utility-ordered shut-off, and they close once power is fully restored to that area.  But such centers cannot solve the bigger problems. During the last power shut-off a few weeks ago, Debrah Vitali went to check on her neighbor, 88-year-old Joan Casper. She and Casper have become close friends in their neighborhood in Santa Rosa, and Vitali knows that Casper wears an emergency calling device around her neck, which she can use to alert medics if she needs help.  The device is tied to Casper's landline, but what neither woman realized was that the landline operates through her internet connection. When the power went out, so did the internet — and with it Joan's ability to summon help.  "I couldn't believe it," Vitali said. "So we've just agreed as a group of neighbors to take turns checking on her, because she'd have no way to let anyone know she was in trouble."  California's Health and Human Services Agency this week established an ongoing, nonemergency hotline (833-284-3473) to help residents find health services in their communities during any power shut-off.  Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, has announced a $75 million fund that state and local government leaders can tap to help purchase generators and other backup energy sources that would keep local emergency services going in their communities.  For people whose medical treatment begins at home, however, the solutions also need to begin there.  At the PG&E center in Auburn, Fern Brown completed her 30-minute treatment before speaking. She said that her asthma and COPD have become worse over the past couple of years and that skipping a nebulizer session is not an option.  Brown and her sister, Lavina Suehead, who cares for Brown, drove a half-hour from their home in the remote town of Foresthill to reach the resource center at Auburn's Gold Country Fairgrounds. They said they would be seeking another solution, both for Tuesday night's treatment and beyond.  "We'll have to do something," Brown said. "We're out of power a lot."  This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.


pravadareport--2019-01-30--China Preparing for Economic Financial Trade and Hot War

China Preparing for Economic, Financial, Trade and Hot War  China seeks cooperative relations with other nations. The US is a global menace, seeking dominance over other countries - sovereign independent governments on its target list for regime change, by war or other means.  It hasn't won a war since WW II ended. What chance would it have against China or Russia? War would one or the other would assure losers, not winners, humanity paying the greatest price, its survival risked if things go too far.  Beijing knows what it's up against in dealing with Washington. It's planning for possible confrontation. Last fall, President Xi Jinping ordered the country's military to boost its capability against potential threats to the nation's security, saying:  "It's necessary (for China's armed forces) to strengthen (their capability), concentrat(ing) preparations for fighting a war," adding:  "We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly."  "We have to step up combat readiness exercises, joint exercises and confrontational exercises to enhance servicemen's capabilities and preparation for war."  Addressing China's Central Military Commission in early January, Xi said "(a)ll military units must correctly understand major national security and development trends, and strengthen their sense of unexpected hardship, crisis and battle."  "The world is facing a period of major changes never seen in a century, and China is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development."  Xi ordered stepped up military training and exercises, saying China's armed forces must "prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point", adding:  "Preparation for war and combat must be deepened to ensure an efficient response in times of emergency."  Last week, senior Chinese officials expressed concern about threats to the country's security over economic and trade war with the US, no breakthroughs achieved in resolving major differences.  First Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of China, Central Policy Research director Wang Huning stressed a "tough battle" ahead in dealing with security risks.  He and Xi said policymakers must develop "bottom-line thinking," preparing for the "worst-case situation" that may threaten the nation's security and stability.  According to Xi, China faces "unpredictable international developments and a complicated and sensitive external environment" over economic, trade, and other disagreements with the US, issues weighing on the country in the year ahead and beyond.  Chinese Academy of Governance official Zhu Lijia warned that fallout over trade war with the US may weigh heavily on China's economy this year.  Confrontation with EU and other US allies is possible. As long as Washington considers China a rival power, the nation will remain threatened by its rage to dominate.  According to political analyst Zhang Lifan, "there's nothing that does not constitute a risk" to China.  Last week, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross explained what's understood by both countries, saying the US and China "are miles from getting a resolution."  Resolving trade differences is relatively easy compared to structural issues. Washington wants China and all other countries subordinated to its interests.  It wants Beijing's industrial, economic, and technological growth and development aims undermined. It intends expanding its military footprint in the Indo/Pacific region where it doesn't belong - or anywhere else uninvited.  The risk of US confrontation with China, Russia, Iran, and other sovereign states is too great to ignore - the risk of potentially catastrophic nuclear war.  My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."


rollcall--2019-12-16--Researchers warn census privacy efforts may muddy federal data

Protesters hold signs at a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after justices blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)  Steps taken by the Census Bureau to protect individual responses may muddy cancer research, housing policy, transportation planning, legislative map-drawing and health care policy, researchers have warned the agency.  The problems come from a new policy — differential privacy — that adds “noise” to census data to help prevent outside attackers from identifying individuals among public data. However, the agency’s latest test of the policy created what researchers called absurd outcomes: households with 90 people and graveyards populated with the living. Such results could skew a count used to redistribute political power and $1.5 trillion in federal spending nationwide.  Some researchers at a national statistics conference last week in Washington called for the Census Bureau to delay formally rolling out the new policy until more research can be done, citing its uneven impact on communities and systemic bias against urban areas. The results of the current algorithm could throw off state budget distributions, health care planning, emergency preparedness and dozens of other areas, argued Nevada state demographer Jeff Hardcastle.  “You can make a bad decision with good data but it is much harder to make a good decision with bad data,” Hardcastle said.  [Commerce watchdog will monitor efforts to keep 2020 census secure]  Researchers have been applying the differential privacy algorithm to a set of 2010 census data used as a test, systematically adding noise with a specific “privacy budget,” a numerical value that helps govern how much the data is changed before public release.  The policy change came after Census Bureau research found that an attacker could isolate almost half of the respondents using public data, allowing them to be cross referenced with commercially available medical data, purchasing information and the like. The agency adopted the new method in response and wants feedback by next summer on how useful the data still is.  Researchers and policy makers have pushed back on the current iteration, though, saying it would throw off state tax disbursements in Tennessee, community planning in Alaska and emergency planning in New York. Joe Salvo, director of the population division for New York City’s department of planning, said the agency needs to fine tune the results so they are still useful.  “Differential privacy is here to stay. Essentially, we are going to have to recognize that and we are going to work for an optimal solution in the noise-privacy continuum we are working with,” Salvo said.  The changes brought on by differential privacy particularly seem to throw off counts for small, minority communities.  Native American communities have been especially affected. During a Census Bureau advisory committee meeting last month, Nicole Borromeo of the Alaska Federation of Natives called on the agency to consider Native Americans and Alaska natives as a separate case when looking at differential privacy.  Researchers like Nicholas Nagle of the University of Tennessee said the changes can have a range of unintended effects, including on states like his that distribute state tax receipts based on population. His research shows that towns would gain or lose revenue, randomly, based on the changes resulting from differential privacy.  “We have never assumed the number of people in a place was something worth protecting,” Nagle said. “That has been assumed it was public information. We’re proud of it. We advertise it on road signs.”  A coalition of state and federal data users sent a letter earlier this month to the Census Bureau calling for more clarity on the policy and raising concerns about the role data scientists played in the process.  “We are particularly concerned that insufficient analysis has been conducted regarding how [differential privacy] will affect the Census data used for informing policy and allocating public and private funds,” the letter said.  Researchers at last week’s conference said the threat of re-identification is real.  “I’m terrified of what is going on,” said Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research.  She said the issue for researchers is not just what data points a respondent might consider public information — their race or age, for example — but what parts an attacker might use to cross reference with commercial data about purchases, medical history and other private information. That could then be used to hurt the same vulnerable communities that demographers, social scientists and others want to help.  “We are talking about voting rights and we are talking about deportation. We are talking about access to services and we are talking about getting kicked out of housing,” Boyd said.  Census Bureau officials acknowledged several problems with the current iteration of the policy and said some — like over-packed households — may be fixed. Other issues, said Census Bureau official Matthew Spence, may turn into a policy tradeoff.  Taking some suggestions, like making population at the smallest level of geography fixed, may make other problems worse because “as we add invariants it adds to noisier results elsewhere,” Spence said.


skynewspolitics--2019-02-08--Govt working to ensure NHS can operate fully in event of no-deal Brexit

Govt working to ensure NHS can 'operate fully' in event of no-deal Brexit  Govt working to ensure NHS can 'operate fully' in event of no-deal Brexit  Matt Hancock said Mark Carney addressed the cabinet on no deal Brexit months ago  The health secretary has said efforts are under way to ensure medicines remain available in the event of a no-deal Brexit.  Matt Hancock's confirmation of the preparations followed reports that senior figures are examining ways to reboot the economy if the UK leaves the European Union without an agreement in place.  According to the Financial Times, officials from the Treasury, Cabinet Office, business and trade departments are meeting with the head of the civil service to develop emergency plans as part of an initiative called "Project After".  The newspaper reports that options explored by the group have included cutting taxes, boosting investment and slashing tariffs - with one Whitehall source describing it as a "Doomsday list of economic levers we could pull if the economy is about to tank".  Mr Hancock told Sky News he would not comment on leaks, but confirmed economic plans have been under way for some time.  He said: "We don't want to leave with no deal but we will have to respond if we do.  "In my area, this means making sure the NHS can operate fully and people get access to medicine.  "That's not just a problem for us but on continent too. In the last 24 hours, my Dutch counterpart has said he is worried about this and is taking action as we are.  "This shows us why its important for the EU side to move so we can get a deal that can be agreed.  "There will be a response on the economic side, and we have known this for some time. Mark Carney addressed the cabinet months ago."  On Friday, Norway's government proposed legislation to try and secure the rights of its citizens living in Britain, and of Britons living in Norway, as the clock ticks down to 29 March.  Theresa May is in Ireland today to meet with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in an effort to come to an agreement over the backstop.  The backstop - a customs plan to avoid a "hard" border between Ireland and Northern Ireland if a Brexit deal is not reached - remains the main stumbling block in Mrs May's plan to take the UK out of the European Union.  The Irish leader is to meet with the main political parties in Belfast before he has dinner with Mrs May.  Meanwhile, the government is preparing for what will happen in Kent after Brexit with the implementation of Operation Brock.  Over the weekend, a temporary steel barrier will be installed on the M20 which will be in place to help queue lorries heading for mainland Europe from the UK while allowing other traffic to flow more freely along the motorway.  Brock is an update to the previous measures in the region - known as Operation Stack - which helped manage traffic when there were strikes at the French ports.  As Mrs May continues to battle for her Brexit deal, and the EU looks into Labour's proposals, Mr Hancock said MPs should back the prime minister to get a deal through before the end of the Article 50 period.  Article 50 is the clause which allows countries to leave the EU, and the two-year period to come up with replacement deals ends on 29 March.  Mr Hancock told Sky News: "The best way through this is to follow what the Commons voted for - supporting the prime minister's deal with assurances we won't be stuck in the backstop forever.  "That's what she has been fighting for and she's got dinner this evening with Leo Varadkar.  "There was an important move from the Europeans, they said they would reopen discussions. They will have their red lines and we are clear about what we want to see.  "That is an important move after they said they would not reopen talks."


skynewsus--2019-08-21--Storm Area 51 events prompt remote county to make emergency plans

'Storm Area 51' events prompt remote county to make emergency plans

Area 51 in Nevada has been the source of speculation for decades  Officials in the remote Nevada county which is home to Area 51 have drawn up emergency plans over fears that up to 40,000 alien hunters could gather at the secretive US military base next month.  More than two million people have committed to the proposed raid of the complex in the hope of seeing aliens - despite the 20 September Facebook event being shut down after its organiser admitted it was a joke.  Even the US air force last month felt compelled to warn those planning to go to the event that it "stands ready to protect America and its assets".  Despite the warnings, the number of people signed up to the event continues to increase.  Now, Lincoln County officials have drafted an emergency declaration and a plan to team resources with neighbouring counties and the state after conditionally approving two events next month tied to the "Storm Area 51" internet drive.  The spirit of the original plan is now living on in the form of Alienstock - a three-day music festival including a "party in the desert" - which is set to take place on 20-22 September in the nearby town of Rachel, which has a population of about 50.  Connie West, co-owner of the Little A'Le'Inn said she is expecting 10,000 people.  The Alien Research Centre souvenir shop in nearby Hiko, a town of about 120, is planning an exhibition the same weekend.  The events evolved from the initial online post inviting people to "storm" the military test area in the Nevada desert.  Authorities are worried that with only 184 hotel rooms across the county, a surge in visitors will crowd campsites, gas stations and public medical, internet and mobile phone services.  "Oh, we're taking this seriously," Lincoln County Commission chairman Varlin Higbee told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday.  "With the possibility of 35,000 to 40,000 people showing up, yeah, this is serious.  "The cellphone system is going to go down. You get more than a couple of hundred people there and it's going to crash. Cell service won't be available."  He added: "We don't want them going down to government property; it will probably be blocked off.  "We don't want civilian people in contact with the military at all. That will get ugly."  Huge secrecy surrounds Area 51, which is not open to the public and is under 24-hour surveillance.  The base, located about 150 miles from Las Vegas, was first used to develop U2 spy planes in the 1950s.  That programme finished after the U2 was put into service around 1956 and the base has since been used for testing other military aircraft, but conspiracy theorists say the site is also home to remains of crashed UFOs.  Peter Merlin, an aerospace historian who has written extensively about Area 51, said the facility is "strictly a place for testing and evaluating aircraft and associated weapons systems".


sluggerotoole--2019-05-01--UK Parliament Declares Environment and Climate Emergency

The House of Commons has tonight declared an “environment and climate emergency.” The first national parliament in the world to do so.  This comes in the wake of mass civil action by Extinction Rebellion, school strikes for climate, and local declarations of climate emergency all over the world.  The UK Labour Party, which proposed the motion, asked MPs to “act with commensurate urgency.” Something which the Green Party have been urging for a very long time.  In the last few days, the Scottish government and the Welsh government have also declared climate emergency. All late to the party, but very welcome.  MPs today fell over each other today to express their ecological concerns. There was unanimous agreement to pass the motion.  A significant moment came when British Environment Secretary Michael Gove at 2.29pm admitted, on the House of Commons floor, that the situation is indeed “a crisis… an emergency… a threat.”  It is another question altogether what the present Conservative government intends to actually do about it. Indications are that they are not yet ready to take more than baby-steps.  The situation is similar in Ireland, where progress was made this week on People Before Profit’s Climate Emergency Measures Bill, which passed through the Dáil – despite government opposition – and now will proceed to select committee stage.  Today’s declaration, and the tone of the debate, shows that a political consensus is building around climate and ecological emergency. And that a combination of grassroots movements, public opinion and cross-party political coalitions are finally beginning to force governments’ hands.  But what does climate emergency actually mean?  In one sense it’s symbolic. Declaring an emergency is a recognition of the urgency of change. If you need a quick refresher on why it’s so serious, start with David Wallace Wells, or watch David Attenborough’s recent BBC programme Climate Change: The Facts.  It’s clear that drastic action needs to be taken immediately, and needs to be well underway as soon as next year. In addition to carbon emissions, the debate today highlighted the impact of extreme weather on people and health, the economy and infrastructure, the loss of biodiversity and its consequent impact on soil quality and food production.  But declaring climate emergency is much more than symbolism. It puts pressure on politicians to put their money where their mouth is, and embark on a series of practical measures.  To take a local example, a handful of Green Party councillors led on a climate emergency declaration in Ards and North Down Borough Council in February this year, which passed without opposition in the chamber. There is currently a public consultation on a Local Development Plan, which involves a sustainability plan, environmental protections and efforts to build local resilience to climate change. All hugely important for a Borough which is a key food producer, with coastlines highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.  Recent findings about dangerously high levels of air pollution in Northern Ireland (amongst the worst in the UK) also focus attention on the urgency of tackling environmental distress. Air pollution is thought to cause at least 500 deaths, and many more illnesses, in Northern Ireland each year.  Derry City and Strabane Council are well ahead of the curve on this, and are in the midst of developing a climate adaptation plan for the District.  National and devolved government declarations, however, have the potential to scale things up dramatically.  UK Labour are now focussing heavily on Green economics. In Rebecca Long-Bailey’s words, climate emergency is “the first step in a long list of radical action we want the government to take,” which will “unlock the huge economic benefits of backing a green industrial revolution.”  This is, in essence, the Green New Deal, something which global activists and European Green Parties have long pioneered. The Green New Deal is an economic and environmental programme to create more jobs and climate justice.  The nettle that governments in Britain and Ireland are struggling to grasp, is what to do about fossil fuels. Legislation regulating fossil fuel companies, stopping subsidies, and de-incentivising their growth, are central to change.  In today’s debate, Michael Gove talked up the importance of individuals and free markets in bringing about change. But the free market is based on an assumption of perpetual growth. And this is not possible on a planet with finite resources. So this individualisation of the problem, and disinclination to intervene in markets, has left governments on these islands footering with small issues like plastic straws, whilst sticking their fingers in their ears about the biggest issues.  GreenPeace launched a climate emergency plan today, which helps us understand what immediate action could look like. It contains 134 “practical actions” which governments can take right now – from energy production (de-incentivising fossil fuels and incentivising renewables), increasing energy storage in the grid, transport, buildings, industry, agriculture, nature, aviation and shipping.  It says implementation of these actions on all fronts would put the UK on course for achieving net zero emissions “well before 2045.” Extinction Rebellion use zero net carbon by 2025 as their jumping off point. But either way, the message is clear. Immediate and urgent action is needed.  Indeed, there is wide public support for such measures. Survey evidence released by Opinium today found that:  Extinction Rebellion has also been active across Ireland, with a large protest a few weeks ago. 95% of second level students said they are worried or very worried about their future due to the threat of climate change, and 86% felt the Irish government was not doing enough to tackle the problem. The school strike for climate in Ireland has also gained significant momentum.  As for what we can do in the north in the absence of devolution, it’s worth thinking about how to support action groups and political parties at Council level who are addressing – in the UN’s secretary general António Guterres’ words – “the defining issue of our time.” Namely climate change, the collapse of nature, and the “direct existential threat” which faces our planet.  Environmental activists have known for long time how urgent this is. But most people saw it as future politics. It’s is now widely accepted that climate and ecological breakdown are the politics of the present. The challenge is how to transform this from bandwagonesque greenwash into deep, practical and lasting action.  “67 Climbers” by Felton Davis is licensed under CC BY


sottnet--2019-05-27--The secret UK government blueprints that shape post-terror attack media campaigns to pacify the publ

The secret UK government blueprints that shape post-terror attack media campaigns to pacify the public

'That's what we want'  'Get the Novichok cleared up'  The British government has prepared for terrorist incidents by pre-planning social media campaigns that are designed to appear to be a spontaneous public response to attacks, Middle East Eye has learned.Hashtags are carefully tested before attacks happen, Instagram images selected, and "impromptu" street posters are printed.In operations that contingency planners term "controlled spontaneity", politicians' statements, vigils and inter-faith events are also negotiated and planned in readiness for any terrorist attack.Within hours of an attack, other campaigns are swiftly organised, with I "heart" posters being designed and distributed, according to the location of the attack, and plans drawn up for people to hand out flowers at the scene of the crime, in apparently unprompted gestures of love and support.Many of the operations are said to be modelled on extensive plans that were drawn up in the UK to channel public anger in the wake of any attack on the 2012 London Olympics.Some had been devised the previous year, at a time when social media platforms were aiding communications between protesters during the Arab Spring - and when a series of riots were erupting in towns and cities across England.One senior figure involved in that contingency planning says that the riots had "absolutely terrified" the British government, and that Theresa May, who was then home secretary and is now prime minister, had been particularly shaken.The measures drawn up in advance of the Olympics were intended to "corral the Princess Dianaesque grief" that was expected to emerge after any mass-casualty attack, a reference to the public mourning that followed the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in 1997.Although there was no terrorist incident at the 2012 Olympics,"The point I noticed change was the Olympics," says one veteran contingency planner in the UK.Officials at the Home Office in particular are said to have been impressed by football fans' demonstrations of support for a Premier League player, Fabrice Muamba, after he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the pitch in March 2012, four months before the start of the Olympics.At subsequent matches, fans of many different clubs held up placards and banners bearing messages of support for Muamba.MEE understands that during subsequent contingency planning meetings, Home Officials suggested that replicating such a response could assist the recovery process after any terrorist attack, and result in the Olympic Games continuing."They were saying: 'That's what we want. If something happens at the Olympics, we want you to make people respond like that. And then the people will want the Olympics to carry on."A number of Western governments are understood to have exchanged information about the way in which they use social media in an attempt to shape public responses following terrorist attacks.Examples of "controlled spontaneity" within the UK that MEE has identified include:After Alan Henning, a British aid worker, was murdered by Islamic State in October 2014, the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) - a controversial propaganda unit that is part of the Office of Security and Counterterrorism at the UK Home Office - turned to a striking image that had already been developed by one of its private sector contractors.The image created by Breakthrough Media, a London-based communications company, was a photograph of a woman wearing a Union Jack hijab, taken in profile.It had been developed, according to an internal Breakthrough document seen by MEE, because "the UK authorities wanted to challenge ultraconservative and misogynistic interpretations of Islam - particularly those around women - in order to promote the true face of Islam among vulnerable UK communities".The document explains that RICU's objective was to "establish a platform for British Muslim women to set out an alternative interpretation of Islam and to take a lead in countering extremism in their communities".The outcome, it goes on, was Making A Stand, "a new British Muslim women's campaigning organisation and network active within British Muslim communities and with an increasingly high-profile in the national media".A few days after the murder of Henning, the campaign described as Making A Stand approached The Sun, a tabloid newspaper, which agreed to dedicate its entire front page to the Union Jack hijab photograph.Inside, the newspaper devoted a further six pages to coverage of political leaders and members of the public who said that they were making a stand against Islamic State terror.Staff at Breakthrough were delighted with the way their work had been passed on to the Sun: a framed copy of the front page was hung in the company's central London offices.The Union Jack hijab is one one of hundreds of media projects that Breakthrough had designed on behalf of RICU as part of the UK's controversial counter-radicalisation programme known as Prevent.Recently rebranded as Zinc Network, the company continues to bid for, and win, RICU contracts. Zinc Network had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.Internal RICU documents seen by MEE say the unit is working "at an industrial scale and pace" to develop messages that aim to "effect attitudinal and behavioural change" - particularly among Muslims. The involvement of the UK government is rarely acknowledged.While covert messaging developed as part of the Prevent programme is aimed at Muslims, particularly young men, attempts to plan for "controlled spontaneity" in the wake of a terrorist attack are aimed at the general population.The day after the London Bridge attacks, a team of men arrived at the scene of the murders in an unmarked van.They could be seen being admitted behind the police cordon, where they plastered walls with a number of posters bearing images of London, and number of hashtags that were already circulating on Twitter: #TurnToLove, #For London and #LoveWillWin.This practice, known in the UK as fly-posting, is a minor criminal offence,The men doing this work declined to tell journalists who they were, or where they were from.When the cordon was eventually lifted and members of the public were able to return to the scene of the attacks, they found themselves surrounded byof the public's defiance and unity.The day after that, a government official telephoned Southwark Council, the local authority for the area where the murders happened."He said: 'We're sending you a hundred imams,'" a council official recalls. Two days after that, about 100 imams and Muslim community leaders from across the UK duly appeared on the bridge, and one read a statement condemning the attack.The following weekend, a group of Muslims arrived at the bridge and handed out thousands of red roses. One of the organisers described it as "a symbolic gesture of love" for people affected by the attack.What the event's organiser did not say is that she worked at the Home Office, in law enforcement.She told MEE that it was entirely a "grassroots" initiative with no government assistance: "I was acting as a member of the community and sought assistance from my personal networks."A week later, in the early hours of Monday morning, an Islamophobic lone attacker, Darren Osborne, drove his van into a group of men near a mosque at Finsbury Park, north London.A number of young men restrained Osborne, and protected him from attack by others. A little while later they were joined by Mohammed Mahmoud, the mosque's imam.By the following morning, the hashtag #WeStandTogether was running across Twitter,As journalists gathered at the police cordon, a number were approached by a woman who called herself Gabbie, and explained that she worked for a company called Horizon PR.What "Gabbie" did not say is that "Horizon PR" had been created by Breakthrough Media and another communications company, M&C Saatchi PR UK, and that Breakthrough has used it to promote the messaging it creates - and disseminates through co-operating civil society groups - under the terms of its contract with RICU.A number of journalists have told MEE that "Gabbie" offered to introduce them to a man standing nearby. This man explained that his name was Shaukat Warraich and that he was from an organisation called Faith Associates.Warraich stressed to the journalists the role that the mosque's imam had played in protecting Osborne until he could be handed over to police. This came to dominate news reports in the days after the attack.Faith Associates, a limited company, has for several years been funded in part by government contracts, and internal Breakthrough and RICU documents seen by MEE show that it works to disseminate government messages.MEE understands that subsequent media reports have caused some ill-feeling in the area: the young men who restrained and protected the killer before the imam arrived at the scene believe their role had been overlooked."They were proud that they had done the right thing, but believe that they were then portrayed as a lynch mob," said one person who prays regularly at the mosque. The young men are now rarely seen at the mosque, he added.Asked about the role that he and "Horizon PR" had played in amplifying Mahmoud's role in conversations with journalists, Warraich replied that he had been working to promote mosque security for some years.Mohammed Mahmoud declined to comment.This has been a time when covert government messaging has been developed as part of the Prevent programme, and during a period when the growing use of social media has offered new opportunities for the creation of "controlled spontaneity".Some governments have become increasingly nervous about the power of social media, however, and will attempt to shut it down rather than make use of it - as happened in Sri Lanka after more than 250 people were killed in suicide bombings in April.In the UK, central and local governments are obliged to prepare for the aftermath of any disaster under the terms of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, a piece of legislation that arose out of the vulnerability that Tony Blair's government is said to have felt during a series of crises early in his premiership.In late 2000, countrywide protests over fuel prices led to petrol shortages, panic buying and the prospect of economic collapse. The following year an outbreak of foot and mouth disease cost the country an estimated £8 billion ($10.25bn) as livestock was slaughtered and many rural areas sealed off.Once the Act was passed, a National Recovery Working Group was established within the Cabinet Office, the UK government's central department.This body established protocols and guidance documents that would be used to aid "recovery", which was defined as a distinct phase after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.The Cabinet Office offered the following definition: "Recovery is the process of rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitating the community following an emergency."Dr Lucy Easthope, a leading figure at the Cabinet Office emergency planning college, has written that "recovery" has since come to be seen as "a specific phase of the disaster that emergency planners attempt to order and something that can be planned for in advance before the specificities of the emergency are known. (The implication being that that these details are a minor issue, capable of being filled in later.)"In order to keep the recovery process under control, hashtags and Facebook posts are said to be examined exhaustively in advance of their use, to establish that they can be used without provoking an unintended reaction.After a terrorist attack - or any other disaster - Cabinet Office teams will work very quickly with the Red Cross and with local contingency planners, who usually send out the first social media messages, MEE has been told.Emergency planners will also advise on the form of words that political leaders should use after such an attack, and enact the pre-planned vigils and inter-faith events."What is wanted is flowers being handed out outside mosques," one emergency planner emphasises, "and not riots".One place where the local team was said to have rejected some central government planners' suggestions was Salisbury, the town in central England where Russian agents used a nerve agent known as Novichok to poison a double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia in March 2018."In Salisbury, people were telling us: 'We're not going to wear T-shirts saying I heart Salisbury - we just want you to get the Novichok cleared up.'"We can play the hashtag game in Manchester, where there's a lot of young people, and they like it.A number of the people involved in the advance planning of "controlled spontaneity" clearly have some misgivings about the way in which emergency planning for the immediate aftermath of terrorist attacks is being combined with propaganda techniques that are intended to influence the responses of the public.Easthope - who wrote British government recovery management plans for more than a decade - has disclosed her concern that the multi-faith displays of solidarity that are negotiated in advance of terrorist attacks, and the pre-planned messages of resilience on social media, may not always be the best way to respond.Perhaps, she has written , "the fight rhetoric has gone too far" and it is a mistake "to insist that the first message should be 'we shall overcome' as if the enemy was on the beaches."Some emergency planners are also concerned that the needs of bereaved families are rarely paramount when plans to create "controlled spontaneity" are being developed."The hashtag can start to feel very empty very early on, and I don't think this ever really puts bereaved families at the heart of what you're doing," says one. "It's an anaesthetic for the wider community, but it's no replacement for really good humanitarian care for the people most badly affected."Nor, some say, is the public being encouraged to engage in debate about the causes of the hatred that underpin terrorist attacks."The government wants the Twitter storm or the Facebook storm to be in its gift, and of course it can't be: but you can distract people by putting up a photograph of a French flag or whatever."We are not having these debates because we are saying 'I heart so-and-so', and 'I'm going to change my profile picture to a New Zealand flag', and 'I'm going to do the haka in the school assembly'."When there's nothing people can actually do, they can change the photo on their Facebook page. Then they can feel they've done something about it, they can go to work,The Cabinet Office said some information about its emergency planning was publicly available, but some remained for internal use only. It did not comment on criticisms of its current operations.This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.


sputnik--2019-01-08--Hundreds of Violations Found in Polish Escape Room Where 5 Teens Died PHOTOS

Hundreds of Violations Found in Polish Escape Room Where 5 Teens Died (PHOTOS)

The teenagers, identified by officials as Julia, Karolina, Amelia, Wiktoria and Malgorzata, all 15 years old, had gone to the two-story site to celebrate a birthday. However, things took a turn for the worse on Friday at roughly 5 p.m. local time after a fire broke out. The cause was later determined to be a leak in a gas cylinder.  The sole survivor of the blaze, a 25-year-old employee who was the "gamemaster," explained to investigators that he was in another part of the building when he initially smelled gas, and when he attempted to turn off the tank, flames quickly erupted.  "He realized after a moment of terror that he would not be able to get to the door to unlock the exit in the room where the girls were playing," Ryszard Gasiorowski, spokesperson for the Koszalin district prosecutor, told reporters. "The fire had already cut him off."  Autopsies later showed that all five girls died of carbon monoxide inhalation. The gamemaster was hospitalized for first and second degree burns.  Four days after the fire, a preliminary investigation revealed that officials found more than 1,100 violations at the building, most of which were related to the venue's emergency plans and lack of an evacuation route. According to the New York Times, the concrete building "had never even been inspected to see whether it met the basic safety code."  As such, the venue's operator, identified only as Milosz S., was arrested this week and charged with intentionally creating a fire danger and unintentionally causing the deaths of the five girls, Gasiorowski told reporters, noting that the venue had a faulty heating system.  Prosecutors are currently requesting that Milosz be held for three months while the case proceeds. If convicted, he could face up to eight years in prison.  According to Polish media outlets, the building, which contains seven rooms, was converted from a family home to various themed escape room that were dubbed "Crime," "Darkness," Workshop" and "Party." Per the Times, only four of the seven rooms were transformed serve as escape rooms.  Following the fire, Joachim Brudziński, Poland's minister of the interior, called for all of the country's escape room attraction sites to be inspected. After inspecting dozens of sites, investigators deemed more than 100 unsafe. Thirteen venues were closed down on the spot.  Authorities are presently calling on residents to report potential violations they encounter any at similar sites to firefighters and police.  Koszalin Mayor Piotr Jedlinski told Polish news station TVN24 that care is being offered to the affected families. The burials for all five girls are set to take place on Thursday.