http://gothamist.com/2014/12/26/circumcision_herpes_nyc.php



The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the snip-'n-suck penis mutilation is performed 3,600 times a year in New York city.

A Delta Airlines flight from New York's JFK Airport to Israel was delayed by half an hour when a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refused to sit next to female passengers.

Delta Flight 468, bound for Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, was reportedly held up due to several Haredi passengers refusing to to sit in their assigned seats, which were in between two women.

The delay was prolonged when the two female passengers involved reportedly refused to move to accommodate the men's request, claiming discrimination.

According to Israel Radio, the stand-off was eventually resolved when an American travelling to Israel offered to change seats.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2891081/Delta-Airlines-flight-New-York-s-JFK-Airport-delayed-ultra-Orthodox-Jewish-passengers-refuse-sit-women.html

US investigators believe that North Korea most likely hired hackers from outside the country to help with last month’s cyber-attack against Sony Pictures, an official close to the investigation has said.

The official said that since North Korea lacked the capability to conduct some elements of the sophisticated campaign by itself, American investigators were looking at the possibility that Pyongyang “contracted out” some of the work.

The attack on Sony Pictures is regarded to be the most destructive against a company on US soil because the hackers not only stole huge quantities of data but also wiped hard drives and brought down much of the studio’s network for more than a week.

While US officials investigate whether North Korea enlisted help from outside contractors, the FBI stood by its previous statement that Pyongyang was the prime author of the attack.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/30/north-korea-hackers-sony-pictures-cyber-attack

New spin from the feds....

It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.

NYPD traffic tickets and summonses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.

Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.

Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/29/arrests-plummet-following-execution-of-two-cops/

Read More: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30632711

Updates: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014976323

May their families find closure and peace.

Within minutes of the Athens parliament failing to elect a president, Alexis Tsipras, the man most likely to become Greece’s next prime minister, said the country had experienced “a historic day”.

For the first time since the foundation of the modern Greek state nearly 200 years ago, radical leftists – marginalised, tortured and tormented for the best part of the 20th century – were on course to assume power. “Greeks,” he said, “should rejoice.” The government that had put the country through an assault course of austerity would soon be over.

The onerous terms of the deeply unpopular “memoranda”, agreed with foreign lenders to keep insolvent Greece afloat, would be overturned.

“The future has already begun,” he told reporters as the nation braced for early elections, a constitutional diktat when presidential polls fail. “You should be optimistic and happy.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/29/syriza-leading-polls-future-begun-alexis-tsipras-greece

Source: AP

Two men opened fire on a police car patrolling a tough part of Los Angeles, but the two officers inside were not injured and one was able to shoot back, authorities said Monday. One suspect was later arrested and the other was on the loose.

The shooting occurred amid heightened tensions over attacks on police elsewhere in the country after grand juries declined to indict white officers in the killings of unarmed black men.

Police have not yet determined a motive for Sunday night's shooting in South Los Angeles — an area plagued by gang violence — but said there were no indications it was linked to other attacks on police in the country.

"It was a completely unprovoked attack," LAPD Deputy Chief Bob Green said initially. "They were just driving on the street, and somebody struck out and tried to kill two policemen."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/shots-fired-los-angeles-police-car-no-one-135526788.html

The federal government is cracking down on nonprofit hospitals under ObamaCare in an attempt to prevent harsh collection practices and steep charges for the uninsured.

Newly finalized regulations from the Internal Revenue Service, announced Monday, will require nonprofit hospitals to “take an active role in improving the health of the communities” by making payment methods more fair and making costs more transparent.

For example, nonprofit hospitals are banned from asking for money in patients’ rooms or selling debt to third-party companies unless they make a “reasonable effort” to offer financial assistance. Each hospital must also take steps to improve the health of its community, including a semi-annual evaluation of the area’s “health needs.”

“For hospitals to be tax-exempt, they should be held to a higher standard,” Emily McMahon, a deputy assistant secretary for tax policy at the Department of the Treasury, wrote in a blog post Monday announcing the rules. ​

The rules come after complaints that some hospitals aggressively sought payments, sometimes in emergency rooms, which the IRS said “highlighted the need for clear rules to protect patients.”

If a hospital fails to follow the new rules, it could lose its tax-exempt status.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/228211-new-irs-rules-crack-down-on-nonprofit-hospitals

Supporters of the New York Police Department have risen up in anger against the unlikely target of Chipotle burrito chefs, thanks to a viral Facebook post that alleged employees of the fast-food chain refused service to eight officers – and despite the chain’s rebuttal of the details contained in the post.

Chipotle’s involuntary participation in the racially charged debate over police behaviour gripping New York began on 17 December, when Ray Melendez, a Brooklyn resident who identified himself as a former NYPD officer, wrote on Facebook – in a post that was deleted on Monday – that “an officer involved at the incident” told him several employees of a local Chipotle had “raised their hands & said: ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ to the officers”.

Melendez said the officers “simply left the location without any further action at the scene rather than provoke what could be a losing situation, given the climate of ‘support’ from our Mayor”. Many members of the NYPD have denounced the mayor, Bill de Blasio, for what they perceive as his support for recent protests over police killings of unarmed black men.

Melendez then quoted a complaint by another former NYPD officer, Scott Lothrop, who said the “familiar but completely erroneous ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ gesture” caused the on-duty officers “a great deal of embarrassment, annoyance and humiliation”.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/29/nypd-chipotle-hands-up-facebook-protest

Not clear if the incident actually happened, if it did...