Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Oregon woman beats up boyfriend for leaving dog in the rain

One Oregon woman apparently loves her dog a whole lot more than she does her boyfriend, according to a release from the Coos County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon. Deputies say the 38-year-old girlfriend punched her boyfriend in the face twice because he left her dog outside in the rain. The report states that the victim had a marble-sized welt with a scratch mark on his right elbow. She was arrested for assault and transported to the Coos County Jail. (Coos County, Oregon Sheriff’s Office Facebook)

NJ family says they received used diapers in nightmare Amazon delivery

A mom in Jersey City, New Jersey had ordered two boxes of diapers from Amazon as she does every month for her two daughters, purchasing the items from the site’s “Amazon Warehouse” section, where open-box and returned items are sold at a discounted rate. When the package arrived this week, she said nothing could’ve prepared her for what she says she found inside. “I picked up the diapers and it was a little bit heavy, I was half asleep the lights were off,” she explained. “At that point, I turn on the light and that’s when I noticed these diapers are neatly-folded and they are soiled.” The shocking discovery prompted the mom to immediately disinfect her nursery, even wiping down her 19-month-old daughter with rubbing alcohol. The child is a micro preemie, was born 26 weeks premature, weighing a little over a pound, making her immune system compromised. The baby was just inches away from what she believed was a health hazard. Speaking to an Amazon customer service representative later that evening didn’t exactly put the family at ease. While the family has not officially sent the substance to be tested, they say it bears a strong resemblance and odor to fecal material. What they want now is a better explanation from Amazon about the mishap. According to their website, the company inspects and certifies all open-box products before re-selling them, something that obviously did not happen. An Amazon spokesperson said, “We work hard to provide customers with a great experience and deeply regret that this situation did not live up to our high standards. We worked directly with the customer to address this situation.” (WPIX)

Suspected tire shop burglar gets stuck under pile of tires, calls 911 for help

A suspected burglar had to call 911 for help after he got stuck under a pile of tires at a store in Bartow County, Georgia, that police say he broke into. The 30-year-old burgler was trapped in the shop with no way to get out. Police said he broke through the rear door of the tire shop. Right on the other side was a towering rack of tires about to greet him. “As the suspect made entry, as he came inside the business, the tires fell on top of him trapping him inside,” said a spokesman with the Cartersville Police Department. Buried under many pounds of rubber, police said the man was in a desperate situation. The business was closed, no one was around, so he called 911. Sparing no time, a police officer answered the call, to find the suspect’s unusual predicament, under pressure. He observed the suspect underneath the tires yelling for help. The officer was eventually able to make entry to that business and get the tires off him and get him out. Officials said he told the officer that he was being chased and made entry into the business to get away from whoever was chasing him. Officials said they have no evidence the man was being chased. The suspect wasn’t hurt and remains in the county jail on criminal trespass charges. (Fox 23)

FBI looking for ‘Bad Wig Bandit’ following three bank robberies in North Carolina

FBI agents in North Carolina are looking for a “Bad Wig Bandit,” who has robbed at least three banks just outside of Charlotte, authorities said. A man, believed to be between 20 and 30 years old, has robbed banks in the past four weeks, wearing different wigs each time, FBI agents said. The first bank targeted by the robber was on December 13th at the BB&T Bank in Huntersville, North Carolina officials said. Then just this past week, he allegedly robbed a New Horizons Bank in Belmont before hitting the Wells Fargo Bank at in Gastonia. (NBC News)

House passes bill to force EPA regulation of ‘forever chemicals’ linked to health concerns

The House passed a bill on Friday that will require the Environmental Protection Agency to act to limit Americans’ exposure to chemicals connected to health problems amid a growing concern about the quality of drinking water around the country. The bill would require the EPA to set clearer drinking water standards and declare some types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) chemicals (commonly known as “forever chemicals” ) as hazardous in one year, which would require cleanups at potentially hundreds of new Superfund sites around the country. It would also require the agency to set a maximum limit of the chemicals allowed in sources of drinking water. These man-made chemicals are so common that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said almost all Americans have a measurable amount of the most well-known types in their blood. Two specific, older types of these chemicals, called PFOS and PFOA, are known as “forever chemicals” because they take so long to break down in the environment after they are released from industrial sources ranging from the firefighting foam used at airstrips and on military bases to waterproof or nonstick products, such as stain repellent, cleaning products or food packaging. An agency within the CDC that evaluates human health risks released a report last year that found PFOS and PFOA chemicals caused health effects in rodents at even lower levels than the EPA’s recommended health limit, this included an increased risk of some cancers, interfering with hormones and the immune system, and growth and developmental impacts on children and infants. (ABC News)

Iranian Hackers Have Been ‘Password-Spraying’ the US Grid

Iran-watchers have warned that the country could deploy cyberattacks as well, perhaps even targeting US critical infrastructure like the electric grid. A new report lends some fresh details to the nature of that threat: By all appearances, Iranian hackers don’t currently have the capability to start causing blackouts in the US. But they’ve been working to gain access to American electric utilities, long before tensions between the two countries came to a head. Recently industrial control system security firm Dragos detailed newly revealed hacking activity that it has tracked and attributed to a group of state-sponsored hackers it calls Magnallium. The same group is also known as APT33, Refined Kitten, or Elfin, and has previously been linked to Iran. Dragos says it has observed Magnallium carrying out a broad campaign of so-called password-spraying attacks, which guess a set of common passwords for hundreds or even thousands of different accounts, targeting US electric utilities as well as oil and gas firms. The password-spraying and VPN hacking campaigns that Dragos has observed aren’t limited to grid operators or oil and gas, cautions Dragos analyst Joe Slowik. But he also says Iran has shown “definite interest” in critical infrastructure targets that include electric utilities. Iran’s hackers have reportedly breached US electric utilities before, laying the groundwork for potential attacks on US electric utilities, as have Russian and China. US hackers do the same in other countries as well. (Wired)

Scientists just discovered giant 790,000-year-old meteor crater

A meteor that struck Earth about 790,000 years ago covered 10 percent of the planet with black lumps of debris. Although scientists know the melted terrestrial rock blanketed eastern Antarctica, the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific for more than 100 years, they were unable to find evidence of the meteor’s impact. According to a new study, the ancient impact was under a field of cooled volcanic lava that spans almost 2,000 square miles in southern Laos on the Bolaven Plateau. The force of the impact is believed to have created a rim measuring more than 300 feet tall, scientists report in the study. The scientists found a site in southern Laos where fields of volcanic lava could have hidden signs of an older meteor impact. As Live Science reports, most of the lava flows in this area were also in the right age range: between 51,000 and 780,000 years old. (PNAS)

FDA announces more recalls of antacids containing traces of carcinogen

The Food and Drug Administration has recalled several more lots of heartburn medications, including more generic versions of Zantac, that have been found to contain trace amounts of a substance that may be linked to cancer. The World Health Organization has classified that substance, N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), as a “probable human carcinogen.” The FDA said that Denton Pharma Inc. had recalled several batches of unexpired ranitidine tablets due to the possible presence of NDMA. Ranitidine is the generic version of the popular heartburn drug Zantac. The recalled batches include certain lots of ranitidine tablets in 150 milligram and 300 mg strengths. Appco Pharma has also recalled batches of ranitidine because of the potential presence of NDMA. The recalled lots have an expiration date of April or May 2021. None of the recalled lots has been associated with any injuries or adverse events. (NBC News)

California Considers Statewide Ban On Gas-Powered Garden Tools

California is considering a statewide ban on the equipment. At least 60 cities in California have some kind of ban on gas-powered garden tools, but now state regulators are concerned about the impacts these tools could be having on the environment. According to the California Air Resources Board, running a gas-powered lawnmower for an hour will produce the same amount of air pollution as a Toyota Camry driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. There are millions more small off-road engines (i.e.: gas-powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers) in California than there are light-duty passenger cars, according to the board’s estimates. The board has set a goal of reducing smog from these machines by 80 percent by 2031. (CBS Sacramento)

Toyota is building its own city

Japanese auto giant Toyota plans to turn a 175-acre site of one of its former factories into a “city of the future”.  The village will be located near Mount Fuji and house up to 2,000 residents, including Toyota employees and their families. Why make their own city? The area will serve as a real-life test space for new autonomous vehicle tech, smart-home services and urban planning designs, among other things. Toyota plans to start building in 2021. (The Verge)

Wednesday Knocks Down The Wall With:

• Alpha Kappa Alpha Day
• Humanitarian Day (Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday)
• National Bagel Day
• National Booch Day