Now a team of scientists has demonstrated that a computer can outperform human judges in predicting who will commit a violent crime. In a paper published last month, they described how they built a system that started with people already arrested for domestic violence, then figured out which of them would be most likely to commit the same crime again.

The technology could potentially spare victims from being injured, or even killed. It could also keep the least dangerous offenders from going to jail unnecessarily. And yet, there’s something unnerving about using machines to decide what should happen to people. If targeted advertising misfires, nobody’s liberty is at stake.

Iran’s most recent ballistic missile test, which violates current UN Security Council resolutions, comes a day after the international community’s nuclear watchdog organization disclosed that it is prohibited by the nuclear agreement from publicly reporting on potential violations by Iran. Iranian leaders now say that they are poised to walk away from the deal if the United States and other global powers fail to advance the Islamic Republic’s “national interests.”

“If our interests are not met under the nuclear deal, there will be no reason for us to continue,” Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, warned during remarks delivered to a group of Iranian officials in Tehran. “If other parties decide, they could easily violate the deal,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state-controlled media. “However, they know this will come with costs.”

Araqchi appeared to allude to the United States possibly leveling new economic sanctions as a result of the missile test. The Obama administration moved forward with new sanctions earlier this year as a result of the country’s previous missile tests. Iran’s latest missile test drew outrage from longtime regime critics on Capitol Hill.

The new missile firings were the latest in a series of tests in recent days, aimed at demonstrating that Iran will push ahead with its ballistic program after scaling backing its nuclear program under the deal reached last year with the US and other world powers. Israel, long an opponent of Iran, offered no comment on the test, though Biden issued a strong warning over any possible violation of the nuclear deal.

"A nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, to the region and the United States. And I want to reiterate which I know people still doubt here. If in fact they break the deal, we will act," he said. Biden's comments came after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposed the nuclear deal. The tests, however, don't violate the accord. The landmark deal, which led to Iran dramatically scaling back its nuclear program, does not include provisions against missile launches.

“This is one of several things we were very worried about,” South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard, who is also a biological sciences professor at Florida International University, told the Miami New Times. “You would have to work hard to find a worse place to put a nuclear plant, right between two national parks and subject to hurricanes and storm surge.”

Turkey Point came online in the early 1970s; it supplies power to more than one million homes in South Florida. The new study blames the leaks on the reactor’s cooling canals, which were recently found to have caused a massive underground saltwater plume to migrate west, threatening a wellfield that supplies drinking water to the Florida Keys.

Turkey Point is not the sole leaky plant in America. Last month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo acknowledged that the state’s Indian Point Nuclear facility was leaking tritium into groundwater. Meanwhile, The Vermont Department of Health has noted ongoing investigations into leaks at Vermont Yankee since 2010, while New York’s FitzPatrick Plant has been “plagued by water leaks” in 2014, Gizmodo notes.

By contrast some of the most profound writing in history has made use of much less. The Lord’s Prayer is 66 words, American President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in 1863 was encapsulated in 271 words while the Ten Commandments contain just 297.

Critics said the rambling ruling exposes how business is strangled by EU red tape and was another reason to vote to quit the bloc on June 23. UK Independence Party employment spokesman Jane Collins said she was not surprised a directive on cabbages was so long winded because the EU motto is “regulate everything then tax it”.

She said: “If the laws were short and to the point and on matters that actually needed legislation they wouldn’t have the excuse to employ so many people and occupy so many offices: there is probably a ‘green leafy vegetable’ department we’ve yet to uncover.”

Sir Jon Cunliffe, the Bank's deputy governor for financial stability, said the renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the EU was "very important", "significant" and "material", and secured "quite powerful" safeguards for the UK. But Mr Carney insisted the Bank would not take a position on whether Britain should stay in the 28-member bloc. Here's a quick look at what Mr Carney and Sir Jon had to say about Brexit.

On the economy: Mr Carney stressed that, in the long term, the Bank of England had the tools to deliver financial stability, whether Britain was in the EU or not. However, in the short term, the impact of a Brexit could "bring some challenges to financial stability". If Britain left the EU and policymakers could not secure the same business conditions for the City that it enjoys today, it would "without question" hit UK jobs and growth, Mr Carney said. This relationship would depend on the "degree of mutual recognition" that would be afforded to the UK.

Mr Carney was also asked what the probability was that the City would get a good deal. He said:"Mutual recognition arrangements are possible to achieve but in general they take a very long time and the challenge is the degree of freedom one retains in setting one's own path of rules and maintaining that mutual recognition." In other words, if the goal of a Brexit is to wrestle back sovereignty from Brussels, it's unlikely Britain could do this and enjoy the same deal as it does now.

On trade: Sir Jon poured cold water on the prospect of swift trade deals with Britain's most important partners. He described trade negotiations as "slow moving" and said they often took a "number of years" to complete. He used the example of the EU's agreement with Canada, which is currently in its eighth year.

On the law: There has been some discussion about whether David Cameron's deal with Brussels is legal. The agreement was reached on an intergovernmental basis. This means it was done outside the EU treaty framework. Sir Jon said he believed the agreement was "binding". He told MPs: "I don't think the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can or would ignore this international law decision."

On why policymakers are ready to inject cash into the market: The Bank of England announced this week that it was ready to pump billions of pounds of extra cash into the financial system if markets seized up in the weeks around the EU referendum in June. Sir Jon said the decision to announce the move well ahead of the vote was taken to limit the downside risks. Such a move too close to the referendum risked triggering volatility in itself, he said.

Seven or eight months ago, Germany was a different country than it is today. There were no controversial political issues demanding immediate action and Chancellor Angela Merkel's leadership was uncontested. It was quiet and comfortable. But then the refugees began streaming into Europe and the country's sleepy tranquility came to a sudden end.

Since then, disgusting eruptions of xenophobia have come in quick succession, a right-wing populist party is on its way to holding seats in several state parliaments, Merkel has gained approval from the center-left Social Democrats and from the Greens, some conservatives want to throw her out and the state is overwhelmed. Does anyone know what is happening? What is wrong with this country?

The United States these days is putting another possible outcome of the crisis of representation on display. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is dependent neither on his party's establishment nor on the established media. He is creating his own electorate with the help of the Internet. That is the path of extremely direct democracy.

It isn't difficult to see the black dystopia that may result: Anger, fear, unchallenged claims to truth and conspiracy theories create a mood that elevates those politicians who are best able to manipulate that mood, in part because he or she helped create it. Identity replaces representation, just like in a dictatorship. All checks and balances - including the party system and the media - fall away. Democracy falls prey to emotion.

Germany is still far away from such a fate. But the first steps have been taken.

Confirmed by the Navy Times, the stand-off has been heating up on both sides. After news in February that the Chinese deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile battery to the Paracel Islands, US Pacific Command head Admiral Harry Harris told lawmakers that China was militarizing the South China Sea. “In my opinion, China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea,” Harris testified on February 24. “You’d have to believe in a flat Earth to believe otherwise.”

However, China is not the nation sending warships halfway across the globe in a clear attempt to provoke a fight. While China is no saint, they are not the country with nearly 700 military bases in dozens of countries across the globe who’ve been responsible for the total destruction of multiple nation-states in just the past decade

As the global economy teeters on the edge of collapse, the US has ramped up its saber rattling, not only with China but with the Russians as well. While America spends more on war than anyone else in the world, the idea that they can take on China and Russia simultaneously is deadly insane.

I had previously reported that France was ready to introduce a similar UN Security Council resolution back in September, but at that time the French backed off because they did not have full support from the Obama administration. But now that Obama is approaching the end of his term, he suddenly seems more willing to make a bold move. Remember, this is not just some Internet rumor. This comes directly from an article that was just published in the Wall Street Journal that claims to have top White House officials as the source of this information.

According to those anonymous officials, the Obama administration is now ready to potentially move forward with the kind of UN Security Council resolution that I mentioned above… “The strongest element on the list of options under consideration would be US support for a Security Council resolution calling on both sides to compromise on key issues, something Israel had opposed and Washington has repeatedly vetoed in the past.”

The article goes on to say that the parameters of an agreement for a two state solution would be based on the 1949 armistice line but would allow for land swaps so that many Jewish settlements that have been built since 1967 would not be swallowed up by the new Palestinian state. The Palestinians would be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and East Jerusalem would receive full UN Security Council recognition as the capital of a new Palestinian state. This is something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that he would never agree to.

For a long time, Barack Obama has expressed a desire to see the establishment of a Palestinian state before he leaves office. Netanyahu has always been his nemesis in this regard, but now Obama seems determined to try to make something happen at the United Nations while he still has the power to do so. Let us pray that he is not successful.

Kim has called for his military to be prepared to mount pre-emptive attacks against the United States and South Korea and stand ready to use nuclear weapons, stepping up belligerent rhetoric after coming under new UN and bilateral sanctions for its nuclear and rocket tests.

US and South Korean troops began large-scale military drills this week, which the North called "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive. Kim's comments, released on Wednesday, were his first direct mention of the claim, made repeatedly in state media, to have successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead, which has been widely questioned and never independently verified.

Why is anyone even considering the elimination of these bills? It seems like there is simply no need for it. The truth is there are a lot of reasons why governments and banks want to eliminate these high-denomination notes, and none of them are good. It should go without saying that the people who are pushing this are not going to give you a straight answer.

You’re going to hear them give the same excuse over and over again for the foreseeable future: Large denominations are indispensable for black market transactions. They enable drug dealers, tax evaders, corruption, and terrorism. But that’s just what they’ll say in the beginning. One day they’ll give all those same excuses, except instead of suggesting the elimination of large-denomination bills, they’ll suggest we get rid of cash instead.

That’s right. What the government, multinational corporations, and the central banks really want, is a completely cashless society, and they’re going to start by eliminating the bills we don’t use very often. Pro-gun supporters will recognize this strategy as the “slippery slope.” Start out with something small that sets a precedent, and quietly eliminate everything over a long period of time so no one notices.

In this instance, however, I’m talking about Big Pharma. Salmon caught in the Puget Sound were recently found to be contaminated with a toxic cocktail of 81 drugs and chemicals. Tissues of the juvenile chinook were tested and researchers were blown away by what they found.

Drugs these fish were on included:

Prozac, Zantac, Advil, Benadryl, Lipitor, Cocaine, Flonase, Aleve, Tylenol, Paxil, Valium, Birth control pills (estrogen), Zoloft, Tagamet, OxyContin, Darvon, Nicotine, Caffeine, Fungicides, Antiseptics, Anticoagulants, Cipro and other antibiotics galore…

Why? Because the process used in wastewater treatment facilities does not filter out all the drugs that are eliminated by humans into the water supply en masse on a daily basis. That water is then reused, contaminated more, taken up by crops and the animals that eat them, and it ultimately winds up on our dinner tables to be eaten and recycled once more.

Researchers had already concluded drugs in the water were turning clams into hermaphrodites and antidepressants in the water might be the reason shrimp are committing suicide…

They sent over 60 different jars bought in 10 states and the District of Columbia to premier melissopalynologist and professor at Texas A&M University, Vaughn Bryant. They found the market to be flooded with fake Indian or Chinese honey which is banned in Europe for safety reasons. It is often contaminated with antibiotics or heavy metals, and doesn’t contain any trace of pollen.

“Any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey,” states the FDA. However, nothing seems to be done about it, and fake, processed honey is still sold in grocery stores all over the US. Ultra-filtration, a technique refined by the Chinese, is a high-tech procedure in which honey is heated and pushed through extremely fine filters at high pressure. This technique not only removes contaminants, but pushes out the pollen and many other beneficial vitamins, minerals and enzymes, too.

Ultra-filtration produces a crystal clear, easy-to-pour, yellowish liquid, while raw unprocessed honey is cloudier, and less pourable and spreadable. It can still contain small parts of the honeycomb, too. If you are a honey lover, you should stick to buying honey from a local, organic farm or co-op.

ORIGIN: On 7 March 2016, British tabloid The Express reported that some German cafes and schools were phasing out pork products. The headline ("GERMANY BANS SAUSAGES") naturally made some readers infer that the country had banned pork entirely. The article itself described a less alarming scenario, in which a single politician said that pork was slowly disappearing from schools and cafeterias, and extrapolating that it was because Muslims were possibly objecting to its presence:

The exaggerated claims about pork bans in Germany weren't the first of their kind to appear in British media sources. An October 2015 press frenzy centered around purported bans on pork in UK offices (nothing was banned), and in June 2015 the Daily Mail claimed Muslims demanded someone's grandfather be exhumed (again, false).

In 2014 claims circulated that KFC banned hand wipes because they were prohibited by Islam (they weren't), and around the same time a questionable story made the rounds about a couple booted from a bus for offending Muslims by singing the theme song to Peppa Pig.

While it was true one or (at most) a few German politicians "bemoaned" what they believed was a disappearing presence of pork in school cafeterias, misleading headlines indicated that there was a "ban on pork". Finally, a number of Germans mocked the assertions as ludicrous and baseless.