Could enemies target undersea cables that link the world?

(Source Associated Press) Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their rival’s interest in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of world’s calls, emails and texts, as well as $10 trillion worth of daily financial transactions. Without undersea cables, a bank in Asian countries couldn’t send money to Saudi Arabia to pay for oil. U.S. military leaders would struggle to communicate with troops fighting extremists in Afghanistan and the Middle East. A student in Europe wouldn’t be able to Skype his parents in the United States. All this information is transmitted along tiny glass fibers encased in undersea cables that, in some cases, are little bigger than a garden hose. All told, there are 620,000 miles of fiber-optic cable running under the sea, enough to loop around the earth nearly 25 times. Most lines are owned by private telecommunications companies, including giants like Google and Microsoft. Their locations are easily identified on public maps, with swirling lines that look like spaghetti. While cutting one cable might have limited impact, severing several simultaneously or at choke points could cause a major outage. It’s not Moscow’s warfighting ships and submarines that are making NATO and U.S. officials uneasy. It’s Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, whose specialized surface ships, submarines, underwater drones and mini subs conduct reconnaissance, underwater salvage and other work. One ship run by the directorate is the Yantar. It’s a modest, 354-foot oceanographic vessel that holds a crew of about 60. It most recently was off South America’s coast helping Argentina search for a lost submarine. Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s publication, last October said the Yantar has equipment “designed for deep-sea tracking” and “connecting to top-secret communication cables.” The publication said that in September 2015, the Yantar was near Kings Bay, Georgia, home to a U.S. submarine base, “collecting information about the equipment on American submarines, including underwater sensors and the unified (U.S. military) information network.” Rossiya, a Russian state TV network, has said the Yantar can not only connect to top-secret cables, but could cut them and “jam underwater sensors with a special system.”

Ricky Williams just launched his own marijuana brand (Source Yahoo) Ricky Williams is no longer just a Heisman Trophy winner, a former Miami Dolphins running back, and a 10-year veteran of the NFL. Now he’s also the purveyor of his own brand of marijuana products. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Real Wellness by Ricky Williams products went on sale on Tuesday in California. As you probably guessed by the name, the products are health-focused. They’ll won’t be available recreationally (which is now legal in California), but will be sold in medical marijuana dispensaries. Real Wellness is starting with six different products: a salve, two tonics, and three types of vape cartridges. Real Wellness is a reflection of Williams’ worldview. He’s studied herbalism and has been a strong advocate for the legalization of marijuana. He also supports use for athletes as a way of managing pain. Williams also suspended twice during his playing career for using weed, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he now has his own marijuana brand. Williams is obviously serious about marijuana’s medical advantages, but of course he knows how to have fun with it. In February, he hosted a weed-friendly Super Bowl party that was so popular, Williams had to triple the number of available spots from 50 to 150.

Sacramento police release body cam footage of officers fatally shooting unarmed black man in his own backyard (Source Business Insider) Sacramento police fatally shot an unarmed black in his own backyard on Sunday after receiving a 911 call about a man breaking car windows in the neighborhood. Two officers went into the suspect’s backyard before firing 20 shots and killing 22-year-old Stephon Clark who they believed was armed. Clark was holding only a white iPhone. Police released body-cam and helicopter footage, as well as the 911 audio recordings, of the incident on Wednesday night. “This guy’s going down the street breaking windows of cars … he’s in the people’s backyard now,” the 911 caller told the dispatcher. Helicopter footage shows Clark jumping over his neighbor’s fence and into his backyard while the two officers move through the driveway and into the backyard with their guns drawn. As one of the officers enters the backyard through the driveway, body-cam footage shows him with a flashlight yelling  “Hey! Show me your hands! Stop! Stop! … Show me your hands! Gun! Gun! Gun!”

Both officers then open fire, sending 20 bullets towards Clark. Helicopter footage shows officers continuing to fire after Clark is shot on the ground. “At the time of the shooting, the officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them,” Sacramento police said in a statement released on Wednesday. “After an exhaustive search, scene investigators did not locate any firearms. The only items found near the suspect was a cell phone.”

For at least three minutes after the shooting, body-cam footage shows one officer continue to shine his flashlight and point his gun at Clark as multiple officers yell to him.

“We need to know if you’re OK,” one female officer is heard saying. “We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon,” she said three minutes after the shooting. Clark didn’t respond. “He had something in hands, looked like a gun from our perspective,” one male officer is heard saying.

Clark’s grandmother, Sequita Thompson, was in the dining room of the home when her grandson was killed. Clark had been staying with his grandparents at the time of his death.

“I opened up the curtain, and he was gone,” Thompson told the Sacramento Bee, choking up. “He was dead … He was just laying there, blood was all over him — and it was an iPhone.” “I told the officers ‘you guys are murderers, murderers,'” Thompson said.

Forget trade — the Trump administration just crossed a far more dangerous ‘red line’ with China (Source newstimes.com) While everyone has been worrying about a trade war between the US and China, something far more dramatic has happened between the two countries. President Donald Trump last week signed legislation to allow high-level talks between the US and Taiwan. That crosses a “red line” for China, violating the “One China” policy the US has had with China since the Nixon administration.

Earlier this month, a scathing editorial in Chinese state media warned the US Senate not to pass the Taiwan Travel Act, legislation to permit high-level talks between US and Taiwanese officials. Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a rousing speech before the National People’s Congress — the annual meeting of China’s Communist Party — and he had some choice words for Taiwan (and most likely the US as well). “All acts and tricks to split the motherland are doomed to failure and will be condemned by the people and punished by history,” he said. About a day later, China’s aircraft carrier the Liaoning went into the Taiwan Strait, where it was tailed by Taiwan’s military. And so here we are, with the market gearing up to watch us haggle over soybeans and Boeing aircraft (the US’s biggest exports to China, according to the Institute of International Finance) like a farmer at the Iowa State Fair — when in reality the danger is much graver. China has for some time been warning the Trump administration against getting closer to Taiwan. In January 2017, the Chinese foreign ministry official Lu Kang did a rare, candid interview with NBC in which he said this:

“Because this issue touches upon China’s core interest, by no means is this something that could be negotiated or used as a bargaining chip … ‘One China’ policy, 100%.”

Then, in August, still worried that the Trump administration would do the unthinkable and pass this bill, China’s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, sent a letter to the leaders of the congressional foreign-relations committees.

Cui said the Taiwan-related measures would be “provocations against China’s sovereignty, national unity, and security interests” and “crossed the ‘red line’ on the stability of the China-US relationship,” according to The Washington Post. What Beijing saw in Trump was a fully transactional president at the helm of the United States — someone who thinks everything is for sale and negotiable.

When it comes to trade, that’s fine. Negotiation is part of the very nature of trade, and both parties have said they will come to the table. This is a question of negotiation skill, which in this administration has yet to be tested and produce significantly positive results. National sovereignty is another matter entirely for the Chinese. From the beginning, they’ve wanted Trump to understand that Taiwan is not a skyscraper or an Atlantic City casino or a nondisclosure agreement drawn up for a porn star. Instead, it is something to be taken very seriously, with long-term implications in mind. For better or worse, the gravity of this situation did not stop the president from signing this bill into law.

Russian Attack Submarine Cruises Past US Mainland ‘Undetected’ (Source sputniknews.com)

A nuclear-powered attack submarine belonging to the Russian Navy “reached the very coastline” of the United States without being detected by any opposition force, a submarine commander has revealed to a Russian military TV channel. Speaking to Zvezda, commander Sergey Starshinov stated “this mission has been accomplished; the submarines showed up in the set location in the ocean and returned to base.” Zvezda, or “Star,” is the official television broadcaster for the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Regarding whether the Shchuka-B submarine had managed to evade radar detection, Starshinov confirmed, “Yes. This is our objective. to come and go undetected.”

The official noted that the vessel cruised closed to an unspecified US military base. The episode during which the interview aired focused on the Akula-class Shchuka-B submarine was broadcasted this week, however it is unknown when and where the mission took place. Nevertheless, the Russian vessel maintained professionalism and did not violate any maritime borders, only remaining in neutral waters, according to the Russian Navy commander.

Trump congratulates Putin on his reelection, discusses U.S.-Russian ‘arms race (Source Washington Post)

President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his reelection victory in a phone call Tuesday and said he intends to meet with Putin to discuss various subjects, including an “arms race” that is “getting out of control.” The call was initially disclosed by the Kremlin and subsequently confirmed by Trump in remarks at the White House. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he congratulated Putin on “his electoral victory,” adding that he and Putin would get together “in the not-too-distant future.” Some world leaders have hesitated to congratulate Putin, since his reelection occurred in an environment of state control of much of the news media and his most prominent opponent was barred from the ballot.

Beyond the congratulations, the Kremlin said, the two leaders discussed Syria, Ukraine, North Korea and arms control. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she does not believe that Trump mentioned Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election or the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England, using a Russian nerve agent. Regarding a possible meeting between Trump and Putin, Sanders said that “there aren’t specific plans made at this time, but we want to continue to have a dialogue with Russia.”

Walmart to expand grocery delivery from 6 markets to over 100 by year-end (Source TechCrunch)

Walmart announced that it will expand its online grocery delivery service to more than 40 percent of U.S. households by year-end, growing from its current availability in just six markets to over 100 metro areas during that time. That means it will be making deliveries from 800 stores in total. The news is the latest salvo in Walmart’s quickly escalating war with Amazon, which just last month announced Whole Foods grocery delivery was available via Prime Now.

But unlike with Prime Now, ordering groceries online from Walmart doesn’t require a subscription of any kind – only a minimum order of $30. Customers place their orders via Walmart’s dedicated website, walmart.com/grocery, or the standalone Walmart Grocery app. At checkout, they select the window when they want to pick up their groceries curbside, or have them delivered – sometimes as soon as same-day. Curbside pickup is free, while delivery costs an additional flat fee of $9.95. The grocery service tends to be more affordable than rivals, which is perhaps Walmart’s key advantage in this space. Whole Foods, for example, was known for being notoriously expensive – it was even dubbed “Whole Paycheck” as a joke. And recent reports indicate that, despite Amazon’s price cuts, some items have been creeping back up in price again. Meanwhile, unlike grocery delivery services such as Instacart and Shipt (the latter which was recently acquired by Target for $550 million), Walmart doesn’t mark up the cost of groceries sold online. They’re the same price as in Walmart stores

ROBOT BEES: WALMART PLOTS GLOBAL POLLINATION (Source RT)

US retail giant Walmart has filed a patent for robotic bees that it hopes will be able to pollinate crops just like their real-life counterparts. The ‘robo-bee’ could provide a solution to the ongoing decline of bee populations.

The patent for the co-called ‘pollination drones’ was filed earlier in March as part of a series of six focusing on automated farming. The robobees would, according to the patent, use a “pollen applicator configured to collect pollen from a flower of a first crop” and then, using sensors and cameras, find their way to other flowers to apply said pollen onto them. Though it’s not immediately clear what the company’s plans for the robotic swarm patent are, some analysts have suggested that the retail giant is hoping to gain a stronger foothold in agriculture and gain more control over its supply chain. Honeybees, responsible for pollinating almost a third of the food eaten by humans, have been dying at an alarming rate over the past number of years. The decline of the honeybee is said to be the result of a phenomenon called ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ though the exact cause of the decline is not yet known. One recent study points to commonly used fungicides as a major culprit. “We threw everything but the kitchen sink at this analysis and the ‘winner’ was fungicides,” study lead author Scott McArt back in December. “It turns out that fungicide use is the best predictor of bumblebees getting sick and being lost from sites across the US.” Perhaps robotic swarms of bees, like the one produced by Harvard University researchers in 2013, offer a feasible solution for mankind in a world in which real bees are being placed on the endangered species list.

Costco Is Selling a $6,000 Doomsday Preparation Kit That Can Feed a Family of 4 for a Year (Source Yahoo Finance)

If President Donald Trump’s upcoming North Korea summit has failed to allay your fears of impending nuclear warfare, Costco has got you covered. The mega-warehouse club chain is selling $6,000 doomsday preparation kits filled with enough food to feed a family of four for an entire year. Costco’s emergency food packs include freeze-dried fruits and vegetables with 25-year shelf lives, plus other pasta and grains that can last up to 30 years. The retailer also offers smaller, less expensive doomsday kits. The least expensive pack costs $1,000 and contains a year’s supply of food for a single adult — but assumes a diet of just 1,200 calories per day. (The $6,000 kit offers a more generous 2,000 calories per day. While Costco has been selling emergency prep kits since at least 2010, interest in doomsday kits has spiked recently after tensions rose between the U.S. and North Korea, The New York Times has reported.

And Costco is not the only retailer profiting from apocalyptic anxiety. Sam’s Club sells a $6,097 four-person gourmet kit with prepared meals like lasagna, teriyaki chicken and beef stroganoff; Walmart sells a cheaper one-year, four-person emergency food kit for $3,634.59.

Keith Bansemer, the vice president of marketing at My Patriot Supply — which, he says, has been selling doomsday supplies since 2008 — says the sales of food storage and water filters for radiation quadrupled after North Korea tested long-range missiles in November. He expects sales to increase again if people “perceive a threat” around Trump’s planned talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ‘These news stories break and almost immediately we see a response come in,” Bansemer says. “The thought of the U.S. being attacked by a nuclear threat is one of the things families prepare for.” Costco, for its part, has declined to reveal how many doomsday kits it has sold, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. The company did say, however, that the kit is a great value “for a family who wanted to prepare for any kind of disaster.”

A DIRE WARNING FROM THE “DOOMSDAY VAULT” (Source Zero Hedge) Climate change alarmists are taking full advantage of the “Sudden Stratospheric Warming” (SSW) event, which occurred above the Arctic in mid-February, as further evidence that the world’s unpredictable and sometimes chaotic weather is jeopardizing humanity’s food security. The split of the polar vortex, otherwise known as an SSW event, shifted the Arctic airmass to most of Europe as well as Western parts of North America. Climate alarmist pointed out that massive snowstorms in Europe, dangerous weather patterns in the United States, and rain in the Arctic demonstrates how extreme weather is altering seasonal growing patterns. Here is what Bloomberg said, “the world was upside down: it was raining in the Arctic Circle and snowing in Rome,” as explained above, the SSW event has been the primary driver of chaotic weather since mid-February. Researchers, activists, executives and government officials gathered in Longyearbyen, a small coal-mining town on Spitsbergen Island, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of what has become known as the “Doomsday Vault,” which is an underground bunker buried deep inside a mountain where the world stores its plant seeds from apocalyptic consequences of climate change and war, said Bloomberg.