<p><center><h1>News Summaries from the WantToKnow.info Archive</h1></center></p>
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<p>Mainstream media often buries important news stories. <a href="http://www.peerservice.org/">PEERS</a> is a US-based 501(c)3 nonprofit that finds and summarizes these stories for WantToKnow.info's <a href="http://www.wanttoknow.info/subscribe.php">free weekly email newsletter</a> and <a href="https://wanttoknow.info">website</a>. Explore below key excerpts of revealing news articles from our archive that were published on today's date in previous years. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. <strong>The most important sentences are highlighted.</strong> If you find a link that no longer works, please tell us about it in a comment. And if you find this material overwhelming or upsetting, <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/overwhelmed">here's a message just for you</a>. By educating ourselves and  <a href="https://www.WantToKnow.info/spreadtheword">spreading the word</a>, we can and will <a href="https://www.WantToKnow.info/brighterfuture">build a brighter future</a>.</p><hr>
<p><h3>Children given lifelong ban on talking about fracking</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2013, by <em>The Guardian</em> (One of the UK's leading newspapers)</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/05/children-ban-talking-about-fracking">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2013-08-05</p><p>Two young children in Pennsylvania were banned from talking about fracking for the rest of their lives under a gag order imposed under a settlement reached by their parents with ...  a leading oil and gas driller. <strong>The settlement, reached in 2011 but unsealed only last week, barred the Hallowichs' son and daughter, who were then aged 10 and seven, from ever discussing fracking or the Marcellus Shale, a leading producer in America's shale gas boom</strong>. The Hallowich family had earlier accused oil and gas companies of destroying their 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania and putting their children's health in danger. Their property was adjacent to major industrial operations ... which the Hallowich family said contaminated their water supply and caused burning eyes, sore throats and headaches. The family gag order was a condition of the settlement. The couple told the court they agreed because they wanted to move to a new home away from the gas fields, and to raise their children in a safer environment. "We need to get the children out of there for their health and safety," the children's mother, Stephanie Hallowich, told the court. She was still troubled by the gag order, however. "I'm not quite sure I fully understand. We know we're signing for silence forever but ... my daughter is turning seven today, my son is 10." The court transcripts were released in response to an open records request by the <i>Pittsburgh Post Gazette</i>, which <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/washington/confidential-agreement-should-have-been-part-of-washington-county-marcellus-shale-case-record-697530/">first reported</a> on the children's lifetime gag order. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-children-given-lifelong-ban-talking-about-fracking">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Is it that Easy to Hack an Election?</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2016, by MSN News/<em>Politico</em></h4></p><p><a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/videos/is-it-that-easy-to-hack-an-election/vp-BBvi23c">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2016-08-05</p><p>Princeton professor Andrew Appel decided to hack into a voting machine. He bought one online. Appel parted with $82 and became the owner of ...the Sequoia AVC Advantage, one of the oldest and vulnerable, electronic voting machines in the United States. He summoned a graduate student named Alex Halderman, who could pick the machine’s lock in seven seconds. Clutching a screwdriver, [Appel then] deftly wedged out the four ROM chips - they weren’t soldered into the circuit board, as sense might dictate - making it simple to replace them with one of his own: A version of modified firmware that could throw off the machine’s results, subtly altering the tally of votes, never to betray a hint to the voter. The attack was concluded in minutes. <strong>Elections could be vulnerable at myriad strike points, among them the software that aggregates the precinct vote totals, and the voter registration rolls that are increasingly digitized. But the threat, the cyber experts say, starts with the machines that tally the votes</strong> and crucially keep a record of them - or, in some cases, don't. It’s not just the voting machines themselves - it’s the desktop and laptop computers that election officials use. And the computers that aggregate the results together from all of the optical scans. If any of those get hacked, it could could significantly disrupt the election. Hackers this year have [already] targeted voter registration rolls in <a href="http://tucson.com/ap/state/hackers-access-illinois-voter-registration-database/article_1d0c0fff-ea50-53cc-809d-f77919053c71.html">Illinois</a> and possibly <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/08/01/488264073/hacking-an-election-why-its-not-as-far-fetched-as-you-might-think">Arizona</a>, another attack highlighted by the Princeton alums.</p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a--it-easy-hack-election">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Melting Ice In Greenland Could Expose Serious Pollutants From Buried Army Base</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2016, by NPR</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/05/488872411/melting-ice-in-greenland-could-expose-serious-pollutants-from-buried-army-base">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2016-08-05</p><p>Buried below the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland, there's an abandoned U.S. Army base. <strong>Camp Century had trucks, tunnels, even a nuclear reactor. It was also a test site for deploying nuclear missiles. The camp was abandoned almost 50 years ago. But serious pollutants were left behind. Now a team of scientists says that as climate warming melts the ice sheet, those pollutants could spread</strong>. [Researcher William Colgan] found unclassified records that described what was left behind there - for example, the nuclear reactor was removed, but low-level radioactive cooling water used in it was not. There were very likely PCBs, which are toxic compounds in electrical equipment. There's no record of how much remained. Colgan says the Army figured all of it would be entombed forever. "They thought it would snow in perpetuity," he says, "and the phrase they used was that the waste would be preserved for eternity by perpetually accumulating snow." Except now, the climate has changed. Greenland's ice sheet is melting. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069688/full">Computer models</a> say the camp could be uncovered by the end of this century. Meltwater could easily end up in the buried camp and then carry contamination through under-ice channels to the ocean. Colgan says it's unclear who owns this waste. The Army built the camp under a treaty between the U.S. and Denmark, which had jurisdiction over Greenland. It's a legal dilemma that's likely to start cropping up more often. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-melting-ice-greenland-could-expose-serious-pollutants-from-buried-army-base">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Space Engine Breaks Laws of Physics?</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2014, by <em>Popular Mechanics</em></h4></p><p><a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/pmam-impossible-space-engine-2482607">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2014-08-05</p><p><strong>NASA has tested a microwave thruster that seemingly violates the law of conservation of momentum</strong>. Originally reported by <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive">Wired</a>, the technology bounces microwaves around to create thrust. British engineer Roger Shawyer designed the original and dubbed it the Emdrive. <strong>If the Emdrive actually works, it could be a game changer in the spacecraft business because it doesn't require propellant</strong>. Propellant is heavy, and once a spacecraft runs out of it, it loses the ability to change direction. Space historian Amy Shira Teitel makes an interesting point on the website Motherboard: "If a spacecraft, say a deep space probe like New Horizons, which is less than a year from its encounter with Pluto, didn’t need propellant, that extra weight and space could be devoted to scientific instruments, larger solar arrays, or a larger power source." Last year, a Chinese team made an Emdrive and reported that they had created enough thrust to move a small satellite. NASA spent eight days testing an Emdrive that was built by Guido Fetta, an inventor based out of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The lab detected a thrust of 30-50 microNewtons, about 1/20 of what the Chinese team measured. On a side note, the NASA lab doing the testing is the same one that is trying to develop the <a href="http://jalopnik.com/the-painful-truth-about-nasas-warp-drive-spaceship-from-1590330763">Alcubierre warp drive</a>, another pie-in-the-sky idea. We'll know more once NASA publishes everything (right now, only the abstract is available) and outside experts weigh in on the experiment and data. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-space-engine-breaks-laws-physics">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Did Churchill and Eisenhower cover up UFO encounter?</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2010, by <em>The Independent</em> (One of the UK's leading newspapers)</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/did-churchill-and-eisenhower-cover-up-ufo-encounter-2043641.html">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2010-08-05</p><p>With a civilian population haunted by the Blitz and the Second World War still in the balance, it was one development Winston Churchill could have done without – an incursion into British airspace by an arrow-shaped metallic object feared to contain an invasion force of little green men. Such was the sensitivity of an alleged UFO sighting by an RAF bomber crew returning to England from a mission over Germany that <strong>Churchill ordered it to be covered up with the words: "This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church."</strong> This at least was the allegation put to the Ministry of Defence by relatives of a senior British military aide who claimed to have witnessed the cigar-chomping Prime Minister discuss the incident with General Dwight Eisenhower as part of a meeting about a succession of "foo fighter" sightings by Allied air crews in the Second World War. The curious matter of visits by wartime aliens is one of hundreds of reports of strange celestial phenomena – from a space station covered in pulsating lights to an unusually agile rocket which buzzed a Boeing 737 at Manchester Airport – to be revealed in documents released today by the National Archives.</p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-churchill-eisenhower-cover-up-ufo-encounter">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Sept. 11 panel considered Pentagon probe </h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2006, by MSNBC/Associated Press</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14191255/">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2006-08-05</p><p><strong>The Sept. 11 commission was so frustrated with repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and FAA about their response to the 2001 terror attacks that it considered an investigation into possible deception, the panel's chairmen say in a new book.</strong> Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton also say in "Without Precedent" that their panel was too soft in questioning former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and that the 20-month investigation may have suffered for it. The book...recounts obstacles the authors say were thrown up by the Bush administration, internal disputes over President Bush's use of the attacks as a reason for invading Iraq, and the way the final report avoided questioning whether U.S. policy in the Middle East may have contributed to the attacks. "Fog of war...could not explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue," the book states. The questioning of Giuliani was considered by Kean and Hamilton "a low point" in the commission's examination of witnesses during public hearings. "We did not ask tough questions, nor did we get all of the information we needed to put on the public record." In their book, which goes on sale Aug. 15, Kean and Hamilton recap obstacles they say the panel faced in putting out a credible report in a presidential election year, including fights for access to government documents and an effort to reach unanimity. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-sept-11-panel-doubted-officials">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>In 21st century America, Samsung TV watches YOU!</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2013, by <em>Houston Chronicle</em> (Houston's leading newspaper)</h4></p><p><a href="http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/08/in-21st-century-america-samsung-tv-watches-you/">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2013-08-05</p><p>During last week’s Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas, researchers from iSEC Partners demonstrated a vulnerability in 2012 models of Samsung’s line of Smart TVs, particularly the ones with that come with cameras designed for teleconferencing. The problem with the Samsung TVs highlights a much larger issue:<strong> The number of devices connected to the Internet is growing exponentially, and many of them have little or no security in place. </strong>Flaws may be found in almost any application on an Internet-connected platform that, if exploited, could allow access to the entire device, and then the user’s full network. Many of these unsecured devices can be found with a simple search. In fact, there’s a search engine devoted just to scouring the so-called “Internet of things” called Shadon. Playing around with it is an eye-opener. For example, in late July a writer for Forbes discovered an entire home automation product line with Internet-connected features that could be set up without a default password, and were visible to search engines. This would enable a hacker to search and find these systems on the Net, then access them at will. <strong>To prove her point, Kashmir Hill breached the home automation systems of random strangers, called them on the phone and demonstrated the vulnerability by turning their lights on and off.</strong></p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a--21st-century-america-samsung-tv-watches-you">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Banks hate Richmond homeowners' bailout plan</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2013, by <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> (SF's leading newspaper)</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Banks-hate-Richmond-homeowners-bailout-plan-4708491.php">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2013-08-05</p><p>Richmond [CA] city officials took a giant leap forward for everyday people last week when they announced a program to purchase ailing residential mortgages and refinance them through a financial partnership and a bold new initiative that's already begun. To accomplish the task, the city said it will use its eminent domain powers in reverse: To save a home instead of condemn it. <strong>Much to the displeasure of the banking industry, the city sent offer letters to more than 600 homeowners whose mortgages are held by nongovernment lending institutions. The program offers to pay lenders the current market value of the property, not the higher value of the mortgage.</strong>  Under the Richmond program, a bank that approved a $500,000 mortgage would be paid roughly 80 percent of its investment. Already, some lenders contend that such a law violates constitutionally protected property rights and sets a precedent that could open the floodgates for other cities in the same predicament. The mere exploration of similar programs in a half-dozen California cities and counties provoked a strong reaction from the banking industry. Financial experts have warned that the Richmond policy is certain to spawn legal challenges and a backlash from lenders who recalculate higher mortgages in Richmond to offset the risk of the city using a local law to claim a foreclosed property. That's interesting, because no measure was too extreme, no taxpayer sacrifice too great to come up with and fund a new financial model to bail out the bankers and brokerage firms in 2008. But that's what the federal government - and American taxpayers did.</p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-banks-hate-richmond-homeowners-bailout-plan">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Author investigates Roswell</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2007, by <em>Philadephia Enquirer</em> (Philadelphia's leading newspaper)</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/montgomery/nabes/20070805_Author_investigates_Roswell.html">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2007-08-05</p><p> Tom Carey has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to uncovering what exactly happened on July 4, 1947, outside Roswell, N.M. Now, along with coauthor Don Schmitt, [he] has published <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Roswell-Unmasking-60-Year-Cover-Up/dp/1564149439/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8440910-6384446?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186847436&sr=1-1">Witness to Roswell</a>: Unmasking the 60-year Cover-Up</em>, documenting his findings concerning the alleged extraterrestrial event.  "The goal was to write a book for those not already initiated in the Roswell case," said Carey, 66. "We wanted to do something that would interest the general public." Though originally rejected by 11 of 12 publishers contacted, the book is in its fourth printing of 10,000 copies. And curiosity continues to grow. After a recent interview on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM show, Carey said Amazon.com logged 2,000 sales the next day.  What has made the book so explosive, Carey said, are two previously unreleased "smoking-gun documents." <strong>The new testimony includes the heretofore sealed affidavit of recently deceased First Lieutenant Walter G. Haut attesting to the bizarre debris and bodies recovered from the crash site. The second, a note scribbled by former Roswell Army Air Field base adjutant Patrick Saunders ... appears to confirm the Air Force's coverup of the incident</strong>.  Carey acknowledges that there are some "kooks" involved in the field of UFOlogy, but his mission has been to use science to take the fiction out of science fiction. "This is a historical mystery that just happens to involve UFOs," he said. A former anthropology student at the University of Toronto, Carey said he has always been more interested in the empirical evidence as opposed to intangibles such as alien abductions and crop circles.</p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-author-investigates-roswell">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Kentucky State president to share his salary with school’s lowest-paid workers</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2014, by <em>Washington Post</em></h4></p><p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/08/05/kentucky-state-president-to-share-his-salary-with-schools-lowest-paid-workers">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2014-08-05</p><p>This summer, [Raymond Burse,] the interim president at Kentucky State University, made a large gesture to his school's lowest-paid employees. Burse announced that he would take a 25 percent salary cut to boost their wages. The 24 school employees making less than $10.25 an hour, who mostly serve as custodial staff, groundskeepers and lower-end clerical workers, will see their pay rise to that new baseline. Some had been making as little as $7.25, the current federal minimum. Burse, who assumed the role of interim president in June, says he asked the school's chief financial officer how much such an increase would cost. The amount: $90,125. "I figured it was easier for me to forgo that amount, rather than adding an additional burden on the institution," Burse says. The school ratified his employment contract on the spot — decreasing it from $349,869 to $259,744. He has pledged to take further salary cuts any time new minimum-wage employees are hired on his watch, to bring their hourly rate to $10.25. Burse describes himself as someone who believes in raising wages, and who also has high expectations and demands for his staff.<strong> "I thought that if I'm going to ask them to really be committed and give this institution their all, I should be doing something in return," Burse says. "I didn’t have any examples of it having been done out there and I didn’t do it to be an example to anyone else," Burse says. "I did it to do right by the employees here."</strong></p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-kentucky-state-president-share-his-salary-with-schools-lowestpaid-workers">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Letter to Thomas Kean from Sibel Edmonds</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2004, by <em>AsiaTimes</em> ('Asia's most trusted news source')</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH05Aa01.html">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2004-08-05</p><p>Your commission ... has now issued its "9/11 Commission Report".  <strong>After [9/11] we, the translators at the FBI's largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down, even stop, translation of critical information related to terrorist activities.</strong> This issue has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Melek Can Dickerson, with the assistance of her direct supervisor, forged signatures on top-secret documents related to certain 9/11 detainees.   Not only does the supervisor facilitating these criminal conducts remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted.   In April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset  ... received information that: 1) Osama Bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting 4-5 major cities, 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes [and] the attack was going to be carried out soon. No action was taken. After 9/11, the agents and the translators were told to 'keep quiet' regarding this issue. The translator who was present ... reported this incident to Director Mueller in writing.  Why did your report choose to exclude the information ... despite the public confirmation by the FBI, witnesses provided to your investigators, and briefings you received directly?  As you are fully aware, these issues and incidents were found confirmed by a Senior Republican Senator, Charles Grassley, and a Senior Democrat Senator, Patrick Leahy.  Even FBI officials 'confirmed all my allegations and denied none' during their unclassified meetings with the Senate Judiciary staff. However, neither your commission's hearings, nor your commission's five hundred sixty seven-page report ... include these serious issues, major incidents, and systemic problems. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-letter-thomas-kean-from-sibel-edmonds">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3>Voting decision creates turmoil</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2007, by <em>Sacramento Bee</em> (Leading newspaper of California's capital city)</h4></p><p><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/309719.html">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2007-08-05</p><p>Across California, bleary-eyed voting watchdogs, registrars and public officials spent the day trying to digest [Secretary of State Debra] Bowen's late Friday decision to limit electronic balloting and install various new safeguards. The former Democratic state senator, an electronic voting skeptic who fought in the Legislature to require a paper trail for digital ballots, [took action] after University of California researchers found security flaws in three electronic systems. Barring a legal challenge, Bowen's actions will force 21 counties to shutter most of their touch-screen machines. Those counties, who use machines made by Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems, will instead ask most voters to fill bubbles on paper ballots to make their selections, a method known as "optical scan." Dan Ashby, [an] electronic voting critic who heads the <a href="http://www.califelectprotect.net/home.html">California Election Protection Network</a><a href="http://www.caprotect.org/"></a>, praised Bowen for her actions.   <strong>"Election officials are probably going to fight tooth and nail against the decertification order, but we think truth and logic are on our side," </strong>Ashby said.<strong> &quot;The best use for the machines would be to melt them down for scrap. But before we can do that, we have to do a withdrawal in stages."</strong> Bowen estimated that more than two-thirds of California voters already cast paper ballots, a number she believes will continue to rise as more people vote absentee. </p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a-voting-decision-creates-turmoil">here</a></p><hr>
<p><h3> Abu Ghraib whistleblower's ordeal</h3></p><p><h4>Published on this day in 2007, by BBC</h4></p><p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6930197.stm">Original Article Source</a>, Dated 2007-08-05</p><p>When Joe Darby saw the horrific photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison he was stunned. So stunned that he walked out into the hot Baghdad night and smoked half a dozen cigarettes and agonised over what he should do. Darby was a ... soldier with US forces at Abu Ghraib prison when he stumbled across those images which would eventually shock the world in 2004. They were photographs of his colleagues, some of them men and women he had known since high school -- torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners. His decision to hand them over rather than keep quiet changed his life forever. He fears for the safety of his family. Joe Darby knew what he saw was wrong, but it took him three weeks to decide to hand those photographs in. When he finally did, <strong>he was promised anonymity and hoped he would hear no more about it. But he was scared of the repercussions. And then he was sitting in a crowded Iraqi canteen with hundreds of soldiers and Donald Rumsfeld came on the television to thank Joe Darby by name for handing in the photographs.</strong> "I don't think it was an accident because those things are pretty much scripted," Mr Darby says. "I really find it hard to believe that the secretary of defence of the United States has no idea about the star witness for a criminal case being anonymous." Rather than turn on him for betraying colleagues, most of the soldiers in his unit shook his hand. It was at home where the real trouble started. His wife ...had to flee to her sister's house which was then vandalised with graffiti. Many in his home town called him a traitor. But he does not see himself as a hero, or a traitor. Just "a soldier who did his job - no more, no less. I've never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in," he says.</p><p><strong>Note</strong>: Read the complete summary and notes <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/a--abu-ghraib-whistleblowers-ordeal">here</a></p><hr>
<p>With best wishes for a transformed world,<br>
Mark Bailey and <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info/aboutus#burks">Fred Burks</a> for <a href="https://www.peerservice.org">PEERS</a> and <a href="https://www.wanttoknow.info">WantToKnow.info</a>
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