Photo Credit / Living Habitats and National Wildlife Federation
Magnificent bridge for LA wildlife survival
In conjunction with the #SaveLACougars movement, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and partners will begin the start of construction officially on April 22 to commemorate Earth Day. The groundbreaking will mark the world’s largest wildlife crossing which will cover 10 lanes of traffic on the very busy 101 freeway near Los Angeles. The project is currently slated for completion by early 2025 and has been dubbed as the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing.
The Wildlife crossing will cost nearly $90 million, with 60% of the price already covered by private donations and the remainder from public funds meant for conservation purposes. Philanthropist Wallis Annenberg donated $25 million to the project
The overpass proposal and funding was inspired by a Los Angeles cougar named P-22 who crossed two freeways to settle in Griffith Park. Unfortunately most wildlife aren’t as lucky to make it safely and roam as nature intended, and this crossing will finally represent a potential solution to this problem.
“This crossing will save the local mountain lion population from extinction, stand as a global model for urban wildlife conservation — and show us that it’s possible for a structure of this magnitude to be built in a such a densely populated urban area”
-Beth Pratt, California Executive Director for NWF
The positive environmental impact will be coupled with an aesthetic improvement that should also please humans, based on the renderings above. With some of the most congested freeways in the world in and around LA, this exception to the endless asphalt sprawl would be a welcome change from the status quo. The crossing is slated to be completed within three years.
A 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit Japan near the north-east coast of Fukushima Wednesday March 16. According to Reuters one fatality has been reported along with 69 injuries. Authorities have issued a tsunami warning with residents in costal areas told to evacuate.
More than 2 million homes lost power, as reported by NPR, The Japanese Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 11:36 P.M. at a depth of 36 miles below the sea.
One person is reported dead and dozens of people are believed to have suffered injuries.
In some areas it was reportedly too forceful for people to stand, and buildings rattled in the Tokyo, according to AFP.
The quake jolted the region just a week shy of the anniversary of the devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that happened back in March 2011.
“Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in broad daylight,” said the NAACP’s president, “and today’s verdict brings us one step closer to justice.”
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…
A jury on Tuesday found three white men who murdered unarmed Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery guilty of federal hate crimes.
Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. “are accused of interfering with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race as well as attempted kidnapping,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports. “The McMichaels are also accused of using weapons during a crime of violence because both were armed during the deadly chase.”
The verdict came about three months after the trio was found guilty of murdering the 25-year-old Black man in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia on February 23, 2020. They were each sentenced to life in prison last month and only Bryan was given the possibility of parole.
Ben Crump, a nationally recognized civil rights attorney who represented the Arbery family, has said that the murder was “so reminiscent of the motivations for lynchings.” Crump on Tuesday welcomed the development, joined by Ahmaud Arbery’s parents, Wanda Cooper-Jones and Marcus Arbery.
"You all did that."
Benjamin Crump speaks after three men found guilty on federal hate crime charges for killing Ahmaud Arbery.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Cooper-Jones called out the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for proposed plea deals with the McMichaels that were ultimately rejected by U.S. District Judge Lisa Wood.
“They ignored my cry,” Cooper-Jones said of members of the Justice Department directly involved in the case. “I begged them.”
“That’s not justice for Ahmaud,” she said of the DOJ’s attempted plea deals. “What we got today, we wouldn’t have gotten today if it wasn’t for the fight that the family put up.”
"That's not justice for Ahmaud."
Ahmaud Arbery's mother called out the DOJ for attempting a plea deal with his murderers: "They were made to do their job today … They didn't have a son that was lying in a cold grave, and they still didn't hear my cry." pic.twitter.com/E8MBOjMkyJ
“The guilty verdict of the three murderers of Ahmaud Arbery of hate crimes is a precedent-setting verdict,” Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted Tuesday. “Even in the Deep South the feds will convict you of hate actions. I salute Ahmaud’s parents for forcing the trial.”
NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement that “two years ago today, none of us knew of Ahmaud Arbery. But two years ago tomorrow, his story shook the conscience of our nation and world. Ahmaud Arbery was lynched in broad daylight, and today’s verdict brings us one step closer to justice.”
Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way, declared that “this is a just verdict for three men that chased, cornered, and killed Ahmaud Arbery.”
“This is the kind of accountability we must have to address the ongoing terror of white supremacy that’s reigned in our country for hundreds of years, where Black people can be killed with impunity,” Jealous added. “We must continue to fight for justice for every American who has been the victim of white domestic terrorism and the injustice it fosters.”
Others also recognized the fight ahead. As the advocacy group NARAL Pro-choice America put it: “This shred of justice only points to a larger problem, how insidious white supremacy and white supremacist violence is within this country.”
We must continue our work towards true justice and anti-racism. We’re holding in our hearts the family of Ahmaud Arbery. Every parent should have the freedom to watch their child grow up without the threat or fear of racist violence. That’s the world we’re working toward. 3/3
The jury in the case consisted of eight white members, three Black people, and one Hispanic person, according to the Journal. They deliberated for less than four hours.
“I, as a mom, will never heal,” said Cooper-Jones. “We got a victory today, but there’s so many families who don’t get victories.”
Originally published on Common Dreams by JESSICA CORBETT and republished under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Scammers Are Using Fake Job Ads to Steal People’s Identities
It has become a ubiquitous internet ad, with versions popping up everywhere from Facebook and LinkedIn to smaller sites like Jobvertise: Airport shuttle driver wanted, it says, offering a job that involves picking up passengers for 35 hours a week at an appealing weekly pay rate that works out to more than $100,000 a year.
But airports aren’t really dangling six-figure salaries for shuttle drivers amid some sudden resurgence in air travel. Instead, the ads are cybercriminals’ latest attempt to steal people’s identities and use them to commit fraud, according to recent warnings from the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and cybersecurity firms that monitor such threats. The U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes, also confirmed that it has seen a “marked increase” in sham job ads seeking to steal people’s personal data, often with the aim of filing bogus unemployment insurance claims.
“These fraudsters, they’re like a virus. They continue to mutate,” said Haywood Talcove, chief executive of the government division of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, one of several contractors helping state and federal agencies combat identity theft. (ProPublica subscribes to public records databases provided by LexisNexis.)
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
This particular mutation is an emerging threat, Talcove and others said. The numbers are small so far, but they’re rapidly increasing. In March, LexisNexis detected around 2,900 ads touting unusually generous pay, using suspicious email domains and requiring that one verify one’s identity upfront. The total had grown to 18,400 by July, and then to 36,350 as of this month. Talcove said these figures are based on a small sample of job ads and that the real number is likely much higher.
This form of scam is surging at a moment when targets for job application fraud abound. Millions of Americans are quitting jobs and looking for new ones. An all-time high percentage of workers — 2.9% — quit their jobs in August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Meanwhile, huge numbers of laid-off workers are still looking for work, making for a historic churn in the labor market.
The ads reflect a tactical adjustment by cybercriminals. A massive wave of unemployment insurance fraud during the pandemic prompted authorities to heighten identity verification requirements. In most U.S. states, cybercriminals can no longer simply input stolen identity information into government websites and frequently collect unemployment insurance aid. Now, applicants whose names are used to apply for unemployment benefits often need to verify on their phones that they’re the ones seeking assistance, a process similar to two-factor authentication.
That means scammers may need help from their victims — and sometimes they go to elaborate lengths to mislead them. Some fraudsters recreate companies’ hiring websites. One fake job application site uses Spirit Airlines’ photos, text, font and color code. The phony site asks applicants to upload a copy of both sides of their driver’s license at the outset of the process and sends them an email seeking more information from a web address that resembles Spirit’s, with an extra “i” (spiiritairline.com). Spirit Airlines did not respond to requests seeking comment.
Other job scams are less elaborate and have more visible signs of inauthenticity. One fake ad for airport shuttle drivers on Facebook was posted by a woman who purported to be working at Denver International Airport. Diligent readers may have noticed that the only location linked from the woman’s Facebook profile was a Nigerian city called Owerri. (A spokesperson for the Denver airport reported the profile to Facebook after an inquiry by ProPublica, and the ad is no longer active.)
In other instances, unsolicited job offers simply land in applicants’ inboxes after they’ve uploaded their résumés to real job search sites, which scammers can access if they pose as potential employers. Jeri-Sue Barron has received a slew of emails since the start of the pandemic informing her that she was preapproved for a variety of jobs she hadn’t even applied for. Barron, a retiree in suburban Dallas, had uploaded her résumé to several job hunting sites in hope of finding some part-time work to supplement her Social Security income. She then received multiple job offers with nary a request for an interview. One email originated from a school in India’s Kerala state; another came from a Croatian website she’d never heard of. “They started coming in from places that were weird,” said Barron. “You almost don’t want to find out the next stage.” She ignored the offers.
As with fake unemployment claims more broadly, the fraud is being facilitated by an underground infrastructure, including online forums where cybercriminals share advice on how to perfect their techniques. A person using the handle “cleverinformation” on a U.K. forum called Carder put together a how-to video that recommends posting fake job ads using a generic job application that can be modified to collect personal data. In September, someone going by “mrdudemanguy” on another forum, known as Dread, offered this advice to a person seeking stolen identities: “Pretend to be a local business and post some job ads. When they send in their résumé, call them and ask some basic job application questions. Make them think they’ve got the job as long as they can do a background check. For the background check request they send you photos or scans of ID documents.”
In response to a query from ProPublica, mrdudemanguy did not answer questions about sharing fake ads and instead focused on explaining the source of his recommended technique and its success. “I have not tried this method myself,” he wrote. “It’s just a method that I know other people do and it does work. It can be done in any part of the world, the country does not matter. As long as the job ad looks legitimate, a person looking for a job will be likely to apply.” Questions sent to cleverinformation yielded a similar response. “It’s effective,” the person said, noting that it’s an underused technique. The person added: “Trying to start a group chat where we share our knowledge.”
The ubiquitous ad for airport shuttle drivers was discussed in a similar forum. One version of it was posted in a Telegram channel of a Nigerian scam group called Yahoo Boys Community, along with instructions on what to tell applicants to get them to share their Social Security number, photographs of their driver’s license and other personal details. The post urged the group’s 5,000 members to ask applicants generic questions via email and offer them the gig — but only if they first shared their personal documents to land the plum job. “Once the client gives you the details, buzz me on WhatsApp and let start work on it Asap,” read the July message, whose initiator could not be identified.
Job application scams have been around in various forms for years. Some entice applicants to buy equipment or software from the scammers in preparation for a nonexistent job. Others try to trick victims into working for free or reshipping goods bought with stolen credit cards. But, according to law enforcement agencies, using fake job ads to steal identities and using them to cash in on government benefits is a new wrinkle.
Alexandra Mateus Vásquez fell for one such scam in December 2020. An aspiring painter, Vásquez was thinking of quitting her sales job at a suburban mall near New York City. She applied for a graphic designer position at the restaurant chain Steak ‘n Shake via the widely used job website Indeed. She was elated when what appeared to be a Steak ‘n Shake representative invited her via Gmail to participate in an email screening test for the job.
Conducting an interview via email initially struck Vásquez as odd, but she proceeded because the questions seemed standard. They included queries like “How do you meet tough deadlines?” according to emails she shared with ProPublica, and she provided earnest answers. Hours later she received an email offering her the job and asking for her address and phone number so a formal offer letter could be dispatched. The offered pay was attractive: $30 per hour. When the letter arrived, it sought her Social Security number, too. Vásquez provided all the requested information.
Soon Vásquez was invited for a background check, via online chat, with a supposed hiring manager. She found herself trading messages with an account that had a blurry photograph of an old man and the name “Iran Coleman” attached to it. (Several other applicants described similar experiences in a discussion about the Steak ‘n Shake job on the hiring site Glassdoor.)
The person claiming to be the Steak ‘n Shake’s hiring manager requested copies of Vásquez’s personal records to verify her identity. She shared photographs of her New York state ID and her green card but grew suspicious when the person asked for her credit card number, too. As Vásquez hesitated, she got a call from ID.me, an identity verification vendor used by 27 states to safeguard their unemployment insurance programs. The company asked if she was applying for jobless aid in California. That’s when she realized she was being scammed. “I was so disappointed,” Vásquez said. “I really believed that that position was real.”
Steak ‘n Shake did not respond to messages seeking comment. (ProPublica was able to reach Iran Coleman, the purported Steak ‘n Shake manager cited in the scam. He said the Louisville Steak ‘n Shake he used to manage is closed and he hasn’t worked there since at least 2014. He said he hadn’t updated his cursory LinkedIn profile, which lists him as a Steak ‘n Shake restaurant manager, in years. Coleman said he now manages three Waffle House restaurants. “I feel for that person,” he said of Vásquez when informed of her experience.)
Vásquez reported the incident to the police and contacted the Social Security Administration, which informed her that it had denied multiple requests to create an account in her name. (A spokesperson for the agency said privacy laws preclude it from discussing individual cases.) She then gave up on her job search. “I started doubting if all the jobs I’m applying for are real,” she said. Vásquez recently launched a website to begin selling paintings online and still hopes to become a design professional.
Blake Hall, chief executive of ID.me, said the company has rolled out language on its systems that informs users when their identities are being used to apply for unemployment insurance benefits and warns them not to proceed if they are being offered a job. Hall said it’s ultimately up to users to heed such warnings. “We will do as much as we can to make it clear that they’ve been scammed,” he said, “but ultimately protecting somebody from themself is a really tall order.” He compared his company to a goalkeeper who also needs help from other members of the team, in this case the job websites where criminals post fake ads.
The Better Business Bureau said in an alert last month that Indeed, LinkedIn and Facebook topped the list of online platforms where users reported spotting fraudulent job advertisements that duped them.
Indeed removes tens of millions of job listings that do not meet its quality guidelines each month, according to a company spokesperson, and it declines to list employers’ jobs if they do not pass those guidelines. In July, the site published a blog post detailing how to spot scam job ads. “Indeed puts job seekers at the heart of everything we do,” the spokesperson said.
LinkedIn removed 10 fake airport shuttle job postings after they were pointed out by ProPublica. A spokesperson said that posting bogus job ads is a “clear violation” of LinkedIn’s terms of service and said the company is investing in new ways of spotting them, such as hiring more human reviewers and expanding a work-email verification system for potential employers.
Facebook took down some of the airport shuttle posts after ProPublica alerted the service, but the company did not respond to questions about its processes for spotting and removing fake ads.
In recent months, the social media platform has also been plagued with fraudulent pages masquerading as state unemployment agencies. Some states complained to the U.S. Department of Labor that Facebook was slow to act on their requests to remove such pages, according to a March email from the department to state workforce agencies disclosed under a public records request. A Department of Labor official said that in March the agency set up a new process for states to report fake unemployment insurance websites to Facebook and that “to date, Facebook has been responsive in taking down fraudulent pages” reported by states.
New ones, however, keep popping up: A fake version of California’s Employment Development Department Facebook page was live as of Oct. 12. The agency confirmed the page was not its own, and it was removed from Facebook shortly after ProPublica’s inquiry.
Even if online platforms clean up their job postings, other identity theft scams are proliferating. On Oct. 15, the FBI issued an alert warning about fake websites that cybercriminals created to resemble the state unemployment websites of Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin. Criminals use the sites to steal victims’ sensitive personal information, according to the FBI.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,”
—Trump via Tweet
Michael Flynn Pleaded Guilty To Lying About Russia Contact but will not serve time
Michael Flynn’s convoluted legal travails are now over. With this brazen, political pardon, Trump managed to keep at least one of his cronies out of jail. Attempts were made by the Bill Barr justice department to have the case dropped, which would have made an official pardon unnecessary, but those efforts did not come to fruition.
This pardon follows that of Trump’s friend and self-proclaimed “dirty-trickster” Roger Stone Jr., who had been facing down seven felonies, after the Mueller Inquiry led to charges against the outspoken and ultra-partisan Mr. Stone.
Stone had originally pleaded guilty, twice, to lying about a series of conversations with the ambassador of Russia.
Here are some others that Trump has already pardoned:
Date of Pardon
Name
Sentencing date
August 25, 2017
Joe Arpaio
October 5, 2017
March 9, 2018
Kristian Saucier
August 19, 2016
April 13, 2018
Lewis “Scooter” Libby
June 14, 2007
May 24, 2018
Jack Johnson
September 14, 1920
It is unlikely that he will try pardon himself, but with Trump, as anybody paying attention would know by now, anything is possible. Stay tuned
Above: Walmart shopp stocks up for quarantine. Photo Lynxotic
Similar to the Curfew in place during the initial surge in March, the curfew requires most non-essential work, movement and gatherings to stop between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. This time around the 30 day oder will be in effect from Saturday, November 21st until Monday, December 21st.
Clearly after more than 1.3 Million deaths and a rising tide of confirmed cases reaching towards 12 million since the pandemic started, there is concern that a laissez fare approach, such as that championed by the Trump administration, could result in an outcome that borders on unthinkable.
“The virus is spreading at a pace we haven’t seen since the start of this pandemic and the next several days and weeks will be critical to stop the surge. We are sounding the alarm. It is crucial that we act to decrease transmission and slow hospitalizations before the death count surges. We’ve done it before and we must do it again.
—California Governor Gavin Newsom in a press release today
Regardless of the various competing studies that tout or play-down the effectiveness of wearing masks, social distancing and just plain staying home, not to mention the hope for a speedy vaccine to become available and disseminated, the so called “lock-down” is one of the few things that have sown to be effective worldwide in at lease limiting the acceleration of the spread of the deadly affliction.
While it is to be expected that various factions will create political backlash for Newsom and may even try to use this as a way to cast aspersions toward “democratic” cities, states and governments, ultimately most people do understand that, as inconvenient it may be to wear a mask and stay home during an imposed curfew or time restriction, having a loved one dying of covid-19, or succumbing to it yourself, is a far more inconvenient outcome.
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