Social media posts could ruin your college dreams, lawyer warns

Merely following Alex Jones on Twitter almost cost one teen a college admission. Another lost his scholarship over a Facebook message about the 2016 election. Anything you post can and will be used against you, a lawyer tells RT.

“It’s absolutely troubling what some of the colleges are doing,” attorney Bradley Shear, who specializes in social media cases, told RT. Many universities are hiring monitoring companies that comb the social media lives of applicants, even going so far as to spy on their search histories and internet activity.
“This is a very problematic situation,” Shear said. “It’s a very big problem and it’s only getting worse.”

Shear shared a story about one client of his, a 17-year-old who was asked in his college admission interview why he followed Alex Jones on Twitter. Last week, half a dozen platforms banded together to ban, block and delete the accounts of Jones and his InfoWars show.
The teen had never liked or retweeted any of Jones’s content – his “transgression” was merely following the conspiracy theorist on Twitter, Shear explained. The way he tackled the case was by going to the college and arguing the admissions interviewer displayed improper political bias.

Another client wasn’t so lucky, losing a $250,000 scholarship and admission to “one of the most prestigious universities in the world” over an emoji and like on a Facebook post related to the 2016 presidential election.
“Even though this teen’s social media accounts had the highest privacy settings, a ‘Facebook friend’ took a screenshot of the alleged inappropriate like and emoji, saved it for months, and anonymously sent it to the admissions office of the teen’s top college choice,” Shear said in a November 2017 Baltimore Sun article.
Though tech platforms have a legal cover for banning someone by invoking their terms of service, “I’m of the belief that, in general, people should be heard,” Shear told RT on Thursday. “And whether or not you like, or agree with, someone’s statements, that’s an individual determination of everyone using their platform.”
“I’m a big fan of not only personal privacy, but freedom of speech,” he added.
The major problem with social media companies is that they are “invasive” in their demands for personal data, the attorney said. Using technology, private institutions gather information about your race, religion, political viewpoints, and so on. Facebook has even reached out to banks about getting the private information of their customers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
“They are taking this information and using it against you,” Shear said. “I don’t want Facebook to know my bank account information. It’s none of their damn business!”
Even as political campaigns seek information on potential voters to better target their online advertising, having little or no social media presence might be an asset for aspiring candidates for public office in the future, as there won’t be any “digital dirt” to dig up on them, the attorney told RT.
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Jury orders Monsanto to pay California man $289mn in ‘probably carcinogenic’ Roundup trial

A groundskeeper who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Monsanto’s weed-killers for years is entitled to $39 million in compensation and $250 million in punitive damages, a California jury has decided.

The jury at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco deliberated for three days before agreeing that Monsanto had failed to warn DeWayne Johnson, 46, and other consumers of the herbicide’s cancer risks.
Johnson filed the lawsuit in 2016, alleging that Monsanto’s Roundup and Ranger Pro herbicides are responsible for his cancer. The trial was expedited because his doctors said he was unlikely to survive past 2020.

As part of his duties as groundskeeper at a California school, Johnson used Roundup between 20 and 40 times a year, sometimes “hundreds of gallons” at a time, according to his lawyer. Two years after starting his job, he was diagnosed with the aggressive cancer.
Monsanto has denied that glyphosate, the key ingredient in both Roundup and Ranger Pro, causes cancer. The company has cited scientific studies going back decades that showed the chemical safe for use by humans.
After labeling glyphosate a “possible human carcinogen” in 1985, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reversed its position on the chemical in 1991. The EU Food Safety Authority said in 2015 that peer review experts, with only one exception, consider glyphosate “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard.”
The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015, but said there was “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma” based on studies from US, Canada and Sweden published since 2001.
Monsanto was acquired by the German agrochemical giant Bayer AG in June, in a merger deal valued at $66 billion.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Monsanto VP Scott Partridge said that the company will appeal and continue to “vigorously defend” the herbicide. “The verdict today does not change the science,” Partridge said.
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Police dashcam footage shows dramatic shootout at routine traffic stop (VIDEO)

Newly released police dashcam footage shows a brutal, blockbuster-like shootout between a driver and two officers during a routine traffic stop in Pennsylvania that escalated very quickly.

Northampton County First Deputy District Attorney, Terence Houck, released the footage on Thursday to demonstrate the risk state troopers face in their line of duty. Houck said he received permission to release the footage from the family of Geneseo Corporal Seth Kelly, who nearly died in the incident.

The shocking dashboard footage shows trooper Ryan Seiple attempt to arrest Daniel Clary, 22, after he fails a field sobriety test on Route 33 in Plainfield Township, Northampton County, in November 2017.

When Clary resists arrest, the altercation turns physical and both Seiple and Kelly wrestle with the driver to subdue him in a tussle that at one point brings the men onto the busy highway.
READ MORE: Multiple fatalities incl police officers in Canada shooting, suspect arrested
Despite both officers using their tasers on Clary, the driver somehow manages to break away from the pair, reach into his truck and pull out a firearm. Clary, can be seen opening fire on the two officers, shooting Kelly four times before speeding off in his vehicle.
When Kelly arrived at a local hospital he was considered clinically dead, according to Lehigh Valley Live. He spent a total of 25 days at the hospital, 12 of which were in a medically induced coma, and still doesn’t remember the shootout.
The 45-minute footage was released after it was shown in the gunman’s trial, which prosecutors say helped lead to his conviction on June 29 for multiple felonies including attempted murder. Clary is due to be sentenced on August 31.
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'Nuclear attack': Investors sue Musk over 'misleading' tweet on making Tesla private

Tesla dealership in the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. / AFP / © DREW ANGERER / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA /

Two investors accuse Elon Musk of manipulating Tesla's share prices by teasing on Twitter that he might pull the company from public markets, and hurting short-sellers. He then took to Twitter to mock them.

Investors argue that the carmaker artificially inflated Tesla's stock price and broke federal securities laws. The lawsuits were filed three days after Musk unexpectedly tweeted to his 22.3 million followers that he is "considering" removing Tesla from public markets, making it a privately-held company.

Tesla's shares did go up by more than 10 percent after the controversial tweet, but the gain was wiped out two days later as the price began to decline.
The tweet surprised many observers and drew criticism that it was not the best way for Musk to announce important decisions. "I do not believe this is the appropriate way to suggest going private," Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, told CNBC.
The plaintiffs say Musk's tweet came as a "nuclear attack" brought on to "completely decimate" short-sellers – traders who make money by borrowing overpriced shares, sell them, and then repurchase the shares at a lower price.
The investors also accuse Musk of misleading the shareholders by claiming in the same tweet that he had "secured" the funds for making the company private, while failing to provide any proof of doing so. The US Securities and Trade Commission is now checking whether the tweet was factual, Bloomberg reported, citing its own sources.
Elon Musk has a long history of feuding with short-sellers. He is known for making sarcastic tweets in the past, such as "Stormy weather in Shortville," after reports of Tesla stocks going up.

The billionaire continued to openly mock the traders on Saturday. In a barrage of new tweets, he joked about "short shorts" being included in "Tesla merch," suggested several potential names for the "shorts," and asked his followers which "short shorts" are their favorite.


The board of directors was informed of Musk's idea to turn Tesla into a privately-held company at least a week before he tweeted about it, six of the nine board members confirmed in a brief statement. They said the board is also evaluating this option.

Sources familiar with the matter confirmed to Bloomberg that Musk and his advisers are seeking investors to back the possible transformation and are holding "early discussions" with banks about the "feasibility" of it.

"A final decision has not yet been made," the Tesla founder said in an email sent to employees.

Musk said he is thinking about pulling Tesla out of the stock market, citing "wild swings" in the company's stock price which can be "a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla." He added that being public "puts enormous pressure" on Tesla, forcing it to make decisions "not necessarily right for the long-term."
The Tesla CEO wrote that he would like to provide the shareholders with two options – staying as investors in Tesla as a privately-held company or selling their stock at $420 per share. "My hope is for all shareholders to remain," Musk said.
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Who’s the boss? US officials work behind Trump’s back to broker NATO deal – report

US President Donald Trump is deemed a hurdle to foreign policy by his own administration, the New York Times has alleged, in an explosive piece detailing the lengths high-level officials would go to to circumvent the POTUS. According to the New York Times, national security adviser John Bolton and other officials worked together to ensure that July’s NATO declaration –usually called a comminiqué– was complete before Trump even touched down in Brussels for the summit. Signed after every summit, the communiqué is usually a boilerplate document that in drab foreign policy language reaffirms member states’ commitment to the venerable alliance. This time around, the communiqué included some harsh words for Russia and NATO also vowed in it to step up its military presence in Eastern Europe. In the lead-up to the meeting, Bolton sent demands to Brussels via the US ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison. Read more Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a community event in the Bronx © Mike Segar US can afford ‘unlimited war’ but not Medicare for all, says Ocasio-Cortez The Times referenced five senior American and European officials as sources for the story, who spoke to the media juggernaut on condition of anonymity. They say that NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg apparently backed Bolton’s directive during a gathering of NATO ambassadors on July 4. The NATO representatives agreed to have their work completed by July 6, four days before Trump touched down in Brussels. According to the Times’ sources, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were also eager to have the terms ‘locked down’ early, to avoid a repeat of the G7 summit one month earlier. At the G7 summit in June, Trump rattled the US’ allies by announcing tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, asking why Russia could not be invited back into the elite club of nations, arriving late to meetings, and by withdrawing his signature from the group’s communiqué when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his own tariffs on US products after Trump had left the summit. While Trump’s team may have been keen to avoid any drama in Brussels, the firebrand president still left his own mark on the NATO gathering. As the summit opened, Trump used a working breakfast with Secretary General Stoltenberg –usually a drab affair– to unload on Germany for signing a gas pipeline deal with Russia, while relying on US protection against an alleged Russian threat. "Germany is [a] captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia. They pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,” he said. “And I think that’s very inappropriate.” From there, Trump spent the two-day summit haranguing allies over their military spending. NATO members all pledge to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense, a target that only five of the 28 member states meet. The US spends more on defense than all other NATO states combined: Almost $700 billion, or 3.6 percent of GDP.

While Trump’s aides may have scrambled behind the scenes to get the communiqué together before the president arrived, his behavior at the much-talked-about summit could not have come as a surprise to anybody.
Throughout his campaign and presidency, Trump consistently talked about pressuring NATO allies to pay their fair share of defense costs, and more than once mulled pulling the US out of the military alliance.
Disagreements
The trio of Mattis, Pompeo, and Bolton have all had their differences with Trump in the past.
Defense Secretary Mattis has publicly disagreed with Trump on NATO, on climate change, and on moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Mattis also spoke out in favor of keeping the US in the Iran deal –which guaranteed Iran some sanctions relief in exchange for a halt on its nuclear weapons program– last year.
Pompeo too has publicly contradicted Trump on a number of occasions. The Secretary of State has publicly denied the existence of a ‘deep state’ – contradicting Trump’s assertions that shadowy forces within the intelligence community are working against him.
READ MORE: Mattis calls space a ‘developing war zone,’ mulls creating combatant command before Space Force
After Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in July, Pompeo again went against Trump, claiming that North Korea was still a nuclear threat, while Trump had declared the threat over.
Before the high-stakes summit with Kim took place, it appeared that Bolton was actively attempting to sabotage the talks. The Kim regime sees nuclear weapons as a key bargaining chip, that could prevent it from going the way of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
Bolton’s suggestion that denuclearization would follow the “Libyan model” was seen as directly attempting to sabotage the talks at worst, or a colossal gaffe at best. Pyongyang called Bolton “repugnant” and threatened to pull out of the summit in response, leaving Trump to walk back on Bolton’s remarks, promising Kim a different fate than Gadaffi.

Despite the disagreements, all three have managed to hold down their jobs in a White House characterized by its high staff turnover. As far as Trump is concerned, they must be doing something right.
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Los científicos destruyen uno de los mitos de la evolución humana

Un nuevo estudio no halla evidencias de que el gen FOXP2 diera a los humanos una ventaja tan significativa en la evolución como para ser adoptado entre las especies en el denominado barrido selectivo.


El gen FOXP2, vinculado con el desarrollo del habla y lenguaje, fue importante para la evolución lingüística, pero no aportó a los humanos ventajas en la evolución como especie. A esta conclusión han llegado los científicos estadounidenses, cuyo estudio fue publicado el 2 de agosto en la revista Cell.
El debate acerca del papel del 'gen del lenguaje' acaparó la atención en 2002, cuando los investigadores creyeron haber encontrado pruebas de que un ajuste en el FOXP2 se extendió rápidamente a todos los humanos hace unos 200.000 años y sustituyó a dos aminoácidos por otros diferentes a los que estaban presentes en el mismo gen en los animales, recoge la revista Science News. Muchos pensaron que aquel intercambio de aminoácidos permitió a los humanos desarrollar el habla, ofreciéndoles un avance frente a neandertales y otros homínidos.

 

Observan a los chimpancés haciendo algo nunca visto hasta la fecha 

El primer problema que planteaba esta teoría surgió en 2008, cuando los científicos descubrieron que los neandertales también presentaban los mismos ajustes en los aminoácidos, con lo cual el cambio genético debió de haber tenido lugar como mínimo hace 700.000 años, antes de que los neandertales y humanos se convirtieran en especies distintas.
En 2009 algunos de los investigadores que participaron en el estudio de 2002 reportaron que el intercambio en los aminoácidos no fue de importancia evolutiva, pero como no se descartaron posibilidades de que en aquel proceso pudieran haber estado involucradas otras variaciones genéticas del FOXP2, el debate siguió abierto.
Para el actual estudio los científicos realizaron un análisis parecido de los patrones de variación genética en el FOXP2 al llevado a cabo en la investigación de 2002, pero estudiaron los genes de más personas, sobre todo de descendencia africana, y utilizaron los datos del genoma entero.
Los científicos concluyen que el gen FOXP2 se extendió entre los humanos debido al crecimiento demográfico tras el comienzo de la migración desde África y no por el barrido selectivo. Los resultados de su estudio sugieren que el barrido selectivo, considerado importante para los cambios entre las especies durante la selección natural que impulsa la evolución, no era común en la evolución de los humanos.

Muere una argentina por practicarse un aborto clandestino en vísperas de la votación en el Congreso

La joven se llamaba Liliana Herrera, tenía 22 años y era madre de dos hijas. Ingresó de urgencia a un hospital de la zona luego de interrumpir su embarazo de forma insegura.


Mientras el debate sobre la legalización del aborto se agudiza en Argentina con marchas a favor y en contra, este fin de semana la realidad mostró la cara más trágica de esta problemática. En la provincia de Santiago del Estero una mujer de 22 años falleció luego de interrumpir su embarazo de manera clandestina.
Liliana Herrera era madre de dos hijas de 3 y 6 años, murió el sábado por la noche en el hospital regional de la capital provincial. Había ingresado de urgencia el día viernes con un cuadro de infección generalizada producto del aborto inseguro que había tenido que llevar a cabo.
Cecilia Canevari, docente e investigadora del grupo Géneros, Política y Derechos de la Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero e integrante de la Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito, declaró a Página/12: "La operaron para sacarle el útero, hizo varios paros cardiorrespiratorios en el medio de la cirugía, pasó a terapia intensiva y murió al poco rato".

"En Santiago del Estero estamos en un escenario del terror. La hipocresía se apoderó de nuestra sociedad", sostuvo Canevari, que también integra el colectivo #NiUnaMenos. Y recordó que los tres senadores que tiene la provincia en el Congreso Nacional anunciaron su voto en contra de la legalización del aborto o, según sus palabras, "a favor del aborto clandestino".
También denunció que el Ministerio de Salud de la provincia no aprueba "el protocolo para la atención de abortos no punibles, ni la aplicación de la educación sexual integral en las escuelas y la Iglesia presiona fuertemente sobre funcionarios y legisladores".

Horas claves para la votación

En los últimos días, varios senadores manifestaron públicamente su voto en contra de la ley de interrupción voluntaria del embarazo inclinando la balanza por la negativa. En este contexto, el caso de Herrera cobró mayor relevancia para quienes defienden la ley.
Durante el domingo, se convirtió en tendencia en Twitter Argentina el tema #YoAborté, donde miles de mujeres relataron sus experiencias con la intención de demostrar que esta práctica existe más allá de la voluntad u opinión de cada persona. En ese sentido, reclamaron nuevamente la necesidad de garantizar las condiciones para que el aborto se pueda realizar de manera legal y segura.

Asimismo, se mantiene la convocatoria para concentrar frente al Congreso el miércoles 8 de agosto (día de la votación), donde se espera la presencia de cientos de miles de mujeres.