Dozens of New York City-area energy industry executives and truck drivers were arrested Tuesday as part of a law enforcement probe into a suspected scam on customers.
DNAinfo reports the bust includes over 40 “owners, executives and truck drivers from some of the city’s largest fuel oil companies” who police accuse of rigging oil trucks to shortchange customers on heating oil. The alleged scammers, who DNAinfo reported include eight owners of fuel companies and three transportation depots, are accused of scamming developers and city agencies, including police and fire departments and those serving “the homeless and city schoolchildren.”
Alleged victims also included the owners of smaller buildings who purchased oil from the companies implicated.
Prosecutors said the trucks were equipped with “diverter valves” that gave fake readouts of how much oil each customer was being delivered, DNAinfo reported. They also allegedly used other tricks to fool measuring devices designed to prevent fraud.
As Congress awaits the administration’s plans to close Guantanamo Bay, Democrats are suggesting it might not be a bad thing if President Obama shutters the facility unilaterally.
While Democratic leaders are being careful not to implore Obama directly to cut Congress out of his decision-making process, they are giving the president ample political cover to use executive authority to shutter the controversial detention facility.
“This president, time and again, has said that he wants to do everything in his power to close Guantanamo before he leaves. The Republicans in congress continue to do everything in their power to stop it,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, on Tuesday. “I think there reaches a point where Congress is just being stubborn. They are just opposing everything he suggests, and he has to make decisions in the best interests of the country, and I think closing Guantanamo is one of them.”
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Keeping intimacy alive in a long-distance relationship isn’t as hard as it used to be. Thanks to technology, geographically challenged partners can talk, text and videochat at all hours of the day and night. Options abound, even, for remotely controlling each other’s sex toys.
Though we can words and sound — and even vibrator controls — over great distances, few options exist for realistically replicating the sensation of human touch. Poised to change that is the Tesla Suit, a new virtual reality outfit that simulates the sensation of body contact.
Its founders claim to have transmitted history’s first virtual hug. “It’s a new dimension in communication,” co-founder Dimitree Marozau told Mic.
Undercover video recorded by an animal rights activist at one of the largest U.S. pork producers appears to show pigs being beaten and dragged across the slaughterhouse floor as workers cheer and throw blood-soaked towels at one another.
An edited version of the video, posted to YouTube on Wednesday, shows pigs covered in feces and riddled with puss-filled sores headed for the production line. It also shows numerous pigs that appear to be conscious and shaking in pain as they are being slaughtered. Federal law requires livestock to be stunned before they are killed.
“That one was definitely alive,” one male employee, whose face is intentionally blurred in the video, shouts as pig carcasses move down a conveyor belt. “If USDA is around, they could shut us down,” a man who appears to be the same employee says later, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates meat processors.
A painting by Amedeo Modigliani fetched $170.4 million at an auction Monday, setting a world record for the artist and achieving the second highest price ever garnered for a work of art at auction.
“Reclining Nude” was sold at Christie’s in Manhattan after a protracted bidding battle. Considered one of his best known works, the 1917-1918 painting nearly created a scandal when it was first exhibited in Paris. It depicts an unknown nude model reclining on a crimson couch and blue cushion.
The previous auction record for a Modigliani was $71 million.
The Supreme Court for a number of years has sided with cops in police brutality cases.
The justices did it again Monday, issuing an unsigned summary decision granting immunity to a Texas officer who shot and killed a motorist fleeing police, even though the officer lacked training or even specific orders to open fire.
In so many words, the court ruled the shooting death was legally justified.
The case arose from a civil rights lawsuit against Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Chadrin Mullenix, who wasn’t involved in the chase but had responded to a checkpoint along its route to help intercept a vehicle driven by Israel Leija. Leija was wanted on an arrest warrant, and had fled when police officers tried to serve the warrant at a Sonic restaurant.
Cancer treatment like chemotherapy can wreak havoc on a patient’s body — even if it’s an adorable dog. But one man’s plan to print cancer-killing viruses could change cancer treatment forever.
University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe resigned Monday under pressure from students, staffers and athletes critical of his response to racial tensions on campus.
As part of the protest, Mizzou’s football team, with the support of coach Gary Pinkel, vowed not to participate in any football-related activities until Wolfe stepped down. The team threatened to skip games, at an estimated cost to the university of more than $1 million.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
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“I shall be the breath of your lungs,” the water nymph Ondine said to her beloved Hans, a mortal, as the two professed their affection for each other.
However, that romance, in Jean Giraudoux’s celebrated 1939 play Ondine, was not to last. Ondine’s uncle, the King of the Sea, unhappy with the relationship, forced his niece to submit to a Faustian arrangement, agreeing that Hans should die if he ever betrayed her.
Being a breathy French play, Ondine ultimately shows Hans deceiving his love and facing punishment — the ignominious end of literally forgetting to breathe. “All the things my body once did by itself, it does now only by special order,” he laments. “A single moment of inattention, and I forget to breathe. ‘He died,’ they will say, ‘because it was a nuisance to breathe.'”
If countries fail to sustain policies that combat the impacts of climate change while also providing safety nets for the world’s poor, global warming will drive an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030, a new World Bank report finds.
The report, titled “Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty,” argues that climate change is a “significant obstacle” to the eradication of poverty. Poor people are more likely to be impacted by climate-related “shocks” such as flooding, drought, crop failure, spikes in food prices, waterborne disease and the long list of extreme weather patterns that scientists have said will increase due to climate change.
“This report sends a clear message that ending poverty will not be possible unless we take strong action to reduce the threat of climate change on poor people and dramatically reduce harmful emissions,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.
In the world, human beings are facing various problems. People who are full of greed, anger, and ignorance are seen to be fighting with each other in words and deeds. As the fighting continues, various problems such as civil wars, wars of aggression, and wars of aggression are occurring. As world peace is being destroyed, humans are facing unbearable problems. Innocent children and women are not getting the rights they deserve and deserve. I can't think of one thing every time. What is it? The United Nations. If we look at the responsibilities and duties of the United Nations, I think it is not suitable for solving the problems that are happening in the world today. In fact, the United Nations and the World Security Council, such an organization must rule the world, must be able to give orders, and must have various ways to obey orders. There must be no organization that can influence more than that organization. There should be experts from each country. They can even dominate the superpowers like the US, China, and Britain. Only then will global peace be achieved quickly. Now, if a country with power develops more militarily, economically, or socially than its own country, then powerful countries will jealously seek out enemies and wage war. Or they will attack with fighter jets. In this, innocent people are losing their lives. No one understands the value of a life. You should think about how to achieve global peace by controlling these. If the US continues to be the permanent president of the UN, world peace will never be achieved. If you think carefully, no one sees that they are working for the common good, but for their own benefit, for the benefit of their own country. The permanent president of the UN and the Security Council has rejected this, As a young Rohingya, I have come to realize that only by electing the president and secretary from among the countries in the world through a secret ballot system and governing the world fairly can we achieve global peace. The United Nations and the Security Council are organizations in which any country must govern, give orders, and make them obey their orders. For example, only when a defendant is tried in court can we hold the leaders of the countries in check and control them, can we achieve global peace smoothly. Otherwise, it will not be easy for powerful countries to use various excuses to end this war every year, every year, for the benefit of themselves and their countries. No country's leaders pay any attention to the words of the United Nations and the Security Council. If we look at it in practice, look at the Rohingya issue. Myanmar is a small country. Even that country has been under siege for 8 years. What action can be taken? Why is the UN and the Security Council Powerless? Without such Power, how can the organization bring about global peace? Everyone should think about it. Whether there is a veto or a strong one, all countries in the world can only achieve global peace if they are subject to the UN and the Security Council. Seek peace in the quiet embrace of nature. Peace is an indispensable need of the human race. It is not as if one person can kill another person, and it is as if one country can attack another country, but instead of trying to build peace, we must try to destroy the peace now, and the world is getting hotter and is on the verge of collapse. I especially appeal to all the world experts to urgently try to bring about peace in all parts of the world. Mr, Noor Muhamed Arkhan Rohingya Youth Myanmar
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Oil truck
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
History’s first virtual hug Source: Tesla Studios
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This dog has cancer
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
