Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

How Did All These State Agencies Get To Be So Funny? — Mother Jones

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. “If you encounter a cougar, …

How Did All These State Agencies Get To Be So Funny? — Mother Jones

Genealogy Roundup, December 18 – Megan Smolenyak

Requiem for the unclaimed dead – There’s only a snippet from me here, but we chatted for about half an hour about the origins of Unclaimed Persons and all the reasons behind it. Was quite the stroll down memory lane, but the problem only grows. It’s the holidays. Please call or send a card to your estranged brother or great-aunt in a nursing home! 🙏

Photo by Oshin Khandelwal on Unsplash

Source: Genealogy Roundup, December 18 – Megan Smolenyak

Dmitry Medvedev says editors of the Times are ‘legitimate military targets’ | Dmitry Medvedev | The Guardian (Me: Mad Dog Dmitry!)

The Russian security council deputy head, Dmitry Medvedev, has described the editors of the Times newspaper in Britain as “legitimate military targets” in response to the newspaper’s coverage of the assassination of a Russian general.

Medvedev’s vitriolic comments on Wednesday followed a Times editorial in which the newspaper described the assassination of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov as “a legitimate act of defence” by Ukraine, which has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Source: Dmitry Medvedev says editors of the Times are ‘legitimate military targets’ | Dmitry Medvedev | The Guardian

Hear Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast from 1938: The Original Tale of Mysterious Objects Flying Over New Jersey | Open Culture

 

 

A month ago, drones were spotted near Morris County, New Jersey. Since then, reports of further sightings in various locations in the region have been lodged on a daily basis, and anxieties about the origin and purpose of these unidentified flying objects have grown apace. “We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,” declared the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in a joint statement. But the very lack of further information on the matter has stoked the public imagination; one New Jersey congressman spoke of the drones having come from an Iranian “mothership” off the coast.

If this real-life news story sounds familiar, consider the fact that Morris County lies only about an hour up the road from Grovers Mill, the famous site of the fictional Martian invasion dramatized in Orson Welles’ 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Presented like a genuine emergency broadcast, it “fooled many who tuned in late and believed the events were really happening,” writes Space.com’s Elizabeth Fernandez.

Source: Hear Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast from 1938: The Original Tale of Mysterious Objects Flying Over New Jersey | Open Culture

New York man pleads guilty to helping run ‘secret Chinese police station’ – Radio Free Asia

Manhattan resident Chen Jinping has pleaded guilty to a charge in federal court related to running a secret Chinese police station in New York.

Chen Jinping, a U.S. citizen, had assisted with administrative tasks at the hidden outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown in 2022.

According to U.S. prosecutors, it was set up by officials at China’s Fuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, a branch of its Ministry of Public Security, and was used to intimidate and silence critics of the Chinese government in New York.

Chen’s plea in Brooklyn on Wednesday is the first time a person involved in one of these overseas outposts has been held to account in court…

 

Source: New York man pleads guilty to helping run ‘secret Chinese police station’ – Radio Free Asia