WASHINGTON – Over the years, the D.C. area has seen peace summits and nuclear arms summits, but the summit planned in the District Thursday night might make you wrinkle your nose.

The meeting will discuss rats, and what many people along the 14th Street corridor see as a big-time increase in the number of them.

“Some of them are sizes as big as squirrels and some of them almost as big as cats,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner John Fanning told ABC 7 in September.

Construction on developments in the area may be behind the increase, Fanning told ABC 7.

“Because of the demolition and the noise of the construction equipment, they’re looking for new homes,” he says.

So, area residents and city officials, including those from the Departments of Health and Public Works, will gather at the Washington Plaza Hotel at 7 p.m. to talk about ways to tackle the problem.

“Our neighborhood is more vibrant than ever with population growth and many new businesses attracting visitors and tourists. Logan Circle is a tremendous success story, but with progress comes new problems. One that we’re increasingly hearing about is the rodent population,” the organizers posted on the event’s website.

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Weeks after Tibetan Sand Mandola performed,
Its lights flashing and siren blaring, a police cruiser that was responding to a robbery report collided with a car at an intersection just northeast of Ohio’s capital early Friday, killing all six people in the car and injuring an officer, officials said.

Investigators said an officer from the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington was responding to a reported armed robbery at a fast-food restaurant when the crash occurred around 1:30 a.m. at a large intersection that includes traffic lights.

The people killed in the other vehicle included a small child. Authorities believe but haven’t confirmed that the driver and a woman riding with him were the parents of the other four people, all girls, said Chief Robert Oppenheimer of Perry Township police, who are investigating the crash.

“That car was just totaled, and they probably died instantly,” Oppenheimer said. Autopsies were planned.

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As Congressional lawmakers ended the 16-day government shutdown Wednesday night by approving a bill to resume funding for the Federal government through Jan. 17, longtime House stenographer Dianne Reidy caused a ruckus inside the House chamber by interrupting the vote and shouting, “the House is divided” and “this is not one Nation under God!”

Reidy’s outburst, captured by C-Span, lasted only moments before House security officials carried her away as she continued shouting, “You are all sons of the devil!”
The stenographer was quoted saying: “He will not be mocked! This is not one Nation under God. It never was. The greatest deception here is this is not one Nation under God! It never was. Had it been, it would not have been! The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons! You cannot serve two masters! You cannot serve two masters! Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ.”
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who banged her gavel and repeatedly shouted “Order!” throughout the outburst, told Fox News that Reidy “came up to the podium area beneath where I was standing and asked me if the microphones were on. I said that I didn’t know. I assumed that perhaps I was chatting too much to the helpful parliamentarians around me. Then she suddenly faced the front and said words like ‘Thus spoke the Lord.’ And, ‘This is not the Lord’s work.’
“I hammered to get control and hush her up. She said something about the devil. It was sudden, confusing and heartbreaking. She is normally a gentle soul.”
Reidy is a well-known and well-liked person on Capitol Hill, according to reports. Her outburst has been described as uncharacteristic of the 20-year veteran stenographer.
“She’s a well-known person, she’s a perfectly nice person, a good colleague, somebody who’s respectable and dependable, and this is very surprising to everybody who works with her… I don’t know, she just snapped,” a GOP aide told CNN.
Commenting under pseudonym “LiesAreSickening” on an International Business Times report about Reidy’s outburst, one person claiming to be “a close relative” of the stenographer, defended her actions thusly:

I am a close relative to Dianne Reidy and I assure you all, she does not have, nor has ever had, a mental disorder of any sort. She is the most loving person I have ever known and has been there for me since birth. I am not the religious type like she is, but the statements she made seemed more logical to me than any of those made by the government officials. I was so surprised when I found out, being that this was very out of character for her and she must have been feeling the frustrations of herself and the others around her to an overwhelming point. I applaud her for her courage in voicing the thoughts of thousands, I am sure. The fact that some of the people present are attempting to make her out to be mentally incompetent is ridiculous and only makes her statements seem all the more valid. Of course they would attempt to discredit her statements by making her seem unstable… that is a perfect example of the way our government handles and ensures their control over the masses of America. Dianne Reidy is a caring person, completely sane as well as highly intelligent and educated, and she does not deserve to experience slander of any type. I may not be able to call myself a devout christian, but I do know when someone is simply “off” in their logic with applying religious concepts to societal concepts– Dianne Reidy is not one of these individuals.

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A man was apparently chased into an Upper West Side street where he was shot earlier this morning. According to NBC New York, the police are now looking into it after “a man walked into a Manhattan hospital with a gunshot wound to his chest.”

A deli worker told WABC 7 he heard three shots and surveillance footage shows the confrontation, with the victim being followed into Amsterdam Avenue near 88th Street.

via Upper West Side Violence: Man Shot In Chest At Amsterdam And West 88th: Gothamist.

Four prominent clergymen invited over 100 churches to unify in an attempt dethrone Reverend Al Sharpton.

Carl Washington, Pastor New Mt Zion Baptist Church, Kris Erskine, Pastor Bethany Baptist Church and Patrick Young, Pastor 1st Baptist Church Elmhurst, Queens and Johnnie Green, Pastor Mt Neboh Church.

The prince of the pulpit may have a revolution on his hands.
Four upstart clergymen have invited more than 100 churches to knock Rev. Al Sharpton off his Harlem political throne.
Speak Out Say It Loud, headquartered at Mount Neboh Baptist Church on Adam Clayton Powell Blvd., is a new coalition of black ministers determined to create a unified African-American power base with citywide clout.
Mount Neboh pastor Johnnie Green, 51, said Sharpton has neglected black New York while pursuing national fame and acclaim.

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The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of MILLIONS of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, OR SYNCHRONIZES A COMPUTER OR MOBILE DEVICE WITH INFORMATION STORED ON REMOTE SERVERS.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.

The collection depends on secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or allied intelligence services in control of facilities that direct traffic along the Internet’s main data routes.

CONTACT LISTS STORED ONLINE provide the NSA with far richer sources of data than call records alone. Address books commonly include not only names and e-mail addresses, but also telephone numbers, street addresses, and business and family information. Inbox listings of E-MAIL ACCOUNTS STORED IN THE “CLOUD” SOMETIMES contain content, such as the first few lines of a message.

Taken together, the data would enable the NSA, if permitted, to draw detailed maps of a person’s life, as told by personal, professional, POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONNECTIONS. The picture can also be misleading, creating false “associations” with ex-spouses or people with whom an account holder has had no contact in many years.

The NSA has not been authorized by Congress or the special intelligence court that oversees foreign surveillance to collect contact lists in bulk, and senior intelligence officials said it would be illegal to do so from facilities in the United States. The agency avoids the restrictions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by intercepting contact lists from access points “all over the world,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program. “None of those are on U.S. territory.”

When information passes through “the overseas collection apparatus,” the official added, “the assumption is you’re not a U.S. person.”

In practice, data from Americans is collected in large volumes — in part because they live and work overseas, but also because data crosses international boundaries even when its American owners stay at home. Large technology companies, including Google and Facebook, maintain data centers around the world to balance loads on their servers and work around outages.

Because the agency captures contact lists “on the fly” as they cross major Internet switches, rather than “at rest” on computer servers, the NSA has no need to notify the U.S. companies that host the information or to ask for help from them.

It is unclear why the NSA collects more than twice as many address books from Yahoo than the other big services combined. One possibility is that Yahoo, unlike other service providers, has left connections to its users unencrypted by default.

Suzanne Philion, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said Monday in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post that, beginning in January, Yahoo would begin encrypting all its e-mail connections.

Google was the first to secure all its e-mail connections, turning on “SSL encryption” globally in 2010. People with inside knowledge said the move was intended in part to thwart large-scale collection of its users’ information by the NSA and other intelligence agencies.

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Published on The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com)
Jeryl Bier
October 8, 2013 3:39 PM
Maryland’s Health Connection, the state’s Obamacare marketplace, has been plagued by delays in the first days of open enrollment. If users are able to endure long page-loading delays, they are presented with the website’s privacy policy, a ubiquitous fine-print feature on websites that often go unread. Nevertheless, users are asked to check off a box that they agree to the terms.

The policy contains many standard statements about information automatically collected regarding Internet browsers and IP addresses, temporary “cookies” used by the site, and website accessibility. However, at least two conditions may give some users pause before proceeding.

The first is regarding personal information submitted with an application for those users who follow through on the sign up process all the way to the end. The policy states that all information to help in applying for coverage and even for making a payment will be kept strictly confidential and only be used to carry out the function of the marketplace. There is, however, an exception: “[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.” Here is the entire paragraph from the policy the includes the exception [emphasis added]: Should you decide to apply for health coverage through Maryland Health Connection, the information you supply in your application will be used to determine whether you are eligible for health and dental coverage offered through Maryland Health Connection and for insurance affordability programs.

It also may be used to assist you in making a payment for the insurance plan you select, and for related automated reminders or other activities permitted by law. We will preserve the privacy of personal records and protect confidential or privileged information in full accordance with federal and State law. We will not sell your information to others.

Any information that you provide to us in your application will be used only to carry out the functions of Maryland Health Connection. The only exception to this policy is that we may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.

The site does not specify if “appropriate authorities” refers only to state authorities or if it could include the federal government, as well. Neither is there any detail on what type of law enforcement and/or audit activities would justify the release of the personal information, or who exactly is authorized to make such a determination. An email to the Maryland Health Connection’s media contact seeking clarification has not yet been answered

The second privacy term that may prompt caution by users relates to email communications. The policy reads: If you send us an e-mail, we use the information you send us to respond to your inquiry. E-mail correspondence may become a public record. As a public record, your correspondence could be disclosed to other parties upon their request in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.

Since emails to the marketplace could conceivably involve private matters regarding finances, health history, and other sensitive issues, the fact that such information could be made part of the “public record” could prevent users from being as free with their information than they might otherwise be. However, as noted, any requests for such emails would still be subject to Maryland’s Public Information Act which contains certain exceptions to the disclosure rules.
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ORIGINAL

The world knows Valeria Lukyanova as the girl who turned herself into a real-life Barbie doll. Controversy has surrounded her every move since her computer-perfect visage went viral last year.

However, what most of the world doesn’t know is that Valeria is not a real girl at all, but a time-traveling spiritual guru whose purpose is to save the world from the clutches of superficiality and negative energy.

Valeria, a.k.a. Space Barbie, gives us exclusive access to her world to show us how physical perfection truly is the best medium through which to deliver life-changing philosophy to the human race.

via Space Barbie | VICE Australia / NZ.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A cargo plane carrying the bodies of four fallen U.S. soldiers landed at Dover Air Force Base on Wednesday, greeted by loved ones whose grief is laced with outrage that even they have not been spared from the government shutdown.

The solemn transfer ceremony is expected to take place in an atmosphere of tearful silence about 100 miles from the political bickering in the nation’s capital, where a death benefit for the families of service members killed in the line of duty has fallen victim to the budget impasse.

The chaplain of the Senate, Barry Black, directly invoked the denial of the benefit in his daily opening prayer before the chamber.

“Lord, when our federal shutdown delays payments of death benefits to the families of children dying on far-away battlefields, it’s time for our lawmakers to say enough is enough,” he said. “Cover our shame with the robe of your righteousness.”

via Families of fallen soldiers to receive bodies, no benefits – U.S. News.

Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis. 

A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population. 

Organizers submitted more than the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum on Friday and tipped a truckload of 8 million five-rappen coins outside the parliament building in Berne, one for each person living in Switzerland. 

Under Swiss law, citizens can organize popular initiatives that allow the channeling of public anger into direct political action. The country usually holds several referenda a year. 

In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation. 

A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company’s lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24. 

The initiative’s organizing committee said the basic income could partly be financed through money from social insurance systems in Switzerland. 

The timing of the vote has yet to be announced, pending official guidance from the government. 

via $2,800 per month for every adult? It could happen in Switzerland – NBC News.com.