Microsoft To Buy TikTok? Company Circles Popular App As Trump Plans Divestment Order

Microsoft may be considering the acquisition of TikTok amid administration fears its current ownership by China poses a security threat. It was unclear how far the talks have gone, the New York Times reported, but the issue of the company's parent has been heating up and President Trump was expected to call on ByteDance to sell the app.

Sources close to the matter told Bloomberg an announcement urging the sale could be made shortly.

“We are looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok,” Trump said at a White House press briefing on Friday. “We are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok.”

Sources close to the situation told the Times it was too early for any specifics on a proposed acquisition. TikTok is said to be valued around $100 billion. Neither Microsoft nor TikTok responded to the outlet's requests for comment on the matter.

TikTok has been one of the fastest-growing apps of the last several years, with more than 1 billion downloads reported in February. With notable popularity among teens and children, the app is available in more than 150 countries and in more than 75 languages. Wholly owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok is considered to be one of the few Chinese apps to have a significant impact overseas.

This association with China has generated controversy. Numerous governments have accused TikTok of handing user data over to the Chinese government, making it a severe security risk in the eyes of many. Recently, the app has been banned in major markets like India and Japan. It also has been caught censoring content on its platform that was deemed unfavorable to the Chinese government.

Trump reportedly has been weighing a ban on the app for some time. While he considered the options, the U.S. Congress moved to add a ban on the app on government-issued employee phones and tablets to a security bill.

https://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-buy-tiktok-company-circles-popular-app-trump-plans-divestment-order-3020633

Google Says New 'Contact Tracing' App To Launch In Coming Weeks

Shortly after launching a new contact-tracing program in Ontario, a top Google executive said in a blog post published Friday that 20 US states and territories (roughly 45% of the country's population) are "exploring" using the tool Google built with Apple to create new contact-tracing programs, and that the new apps are set to launch in the coming weeks.

Google had previously said in May that three states, Alabama, North Dakota and South Carolina, would be launching apps using the exposure notification tool. Those states are still using the protocols, it appears.

Additionally, the company said during its update that 16 countries and regions outside the US have launched apps using the Apple-Google tool, while other countries - including France and the UK - have sought to build their own tools from scratch, though the UK infamously pivoted, abandoned its custom system, and adopted the Google-Apple protocol.

However, the UK has yet to launch this new app, and it's unclear when it will be ready, as the Telegraph recently reported.

Here's how the UK's app-based system (which is based on the Google-Apple system) is supposed to work, per the Telegraph.

The technology should enable users to track whether they came in contact with any infected people via bluetooth signals.

VP of Engineering David Burke penned the post, which was published Friday afternoon on the East Coast. Read it in full below:

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/google-says-new-contact-tracing-app-launch-coming-weeks

1 Marine Dead, 8 More Missing After AAV Accident Off California Coast

Marine Corps, Navy and Coast Guard assets are searching for eight missing troops following a deadly Marine amphibious vehicle accident that took place Thursday afternoon off the coast of southern California.

The Marines, assigned to the San Diego-based 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, had been conducting a routine training exercise near San Clemente Island in coordination with the three-ship Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and other assets assigned to the MEU. Around 5:45 p.m. local time, the amphibious assault vehicle reported taking on water, according to a news release from I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Of the 15 Marines and one sailor aboard the AAV, eight were able to make it out of the vehicle. One was evacuated to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla near San Diego, where the Marine was pronounced dead. Two more Marines were sent to local hospitals, where they remain. One is in critical condition, and one is stable, according to officials.

Eight service members who were aboard the AAV remain missing. According to the release, the Navy destroyer John Finn, three Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and small boats from the amphibious ships Makin Island, Somerset and San Diego are participating in the search. The Coast Guard cutter Forrest Rednour and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Coast Guard Sector San Diego are also assisting.

Marine Corps officials declined to identify the Marine who died, citing a 24-hour notification period for family members.

"We are deeply saddened by this tragic incident. I ask that you keep our Marines, Sailors, and their families in your prayers as we continue our search," Col. Christopher Bronzi, 15th MEU commanding officer, said in a statement.

Amphibious assault vehicles, which move on tank-like tracks and can operate on land and swim in water, are used to transport Marines from ship to shore. They've been in use by the Marines since the early 1970s and are currently set to be replaced by the amphibious combat vehicle, now in development.

In January 2011, one Marine died when an AAV sank off the coast of Camp Pendleton during a training operation. The other five Marines aboard were able to escape.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/07/31/1-marine-dead-8-more-missing-after-aav-accident-off-california-coast.html

Holocaust survivors urge Facebook to remove denial posts

Holocaust survivors around the world are lending their voices to a campaign launched Wednesday targeting Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to take action to remove denial of the Nazi genocide from the social media site.

Coordinated by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the #NoDenyingIt campaign uses Facebook itself to make the survivors’ entreaties to Zuckerberg heard, posting one video per day urging him to remove Holocaust-denying groups, pages and posts as hate speech. Videos will also be posted on Facebook-owned Instagram, as well as Twitter.

Zuckerberg raised the ire of the Claims Conference and others with comments in 2018 to the tech website Recode that posts denying the Nazi annihilation of 6 million Jews would not necessarily be removed. He said he did not think Holocaust deniers were “intentionally” getting it wrong, and that as long as posts were not calling for harm or violence, even offensive content should be protected.

After an outcry, Zuckerberg, who is Jewish himself, clarified that while he personally found “Holocaust denial deeply offensive” he believed that “the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech.”

Since then, Facebook representatives have met with the Claims Conference but the group, which negotiates compensation payments from Germany for Holocaust victims, says Zuckerberg himself has refused to. The goal of the campaign is to get him to sit down with Holocaust survivors so that they can personally tell him their stories and make their case that denial violates Facebook’s hate speech standards and should be removed.

“In Germany or in Austria people go to prison if they deny the Holocaust because they know it’s a lie, it’s libel,” said Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor who today lives in London and has recorded a message for Zuckerberg.

“How can somebody really doubt it? Where are the 6 million people? There are tens of thousands of photos taken by the Nazis themselves. They were proud of what they were doing. They don’t deny it, they know they did it.”

Schloss’ family escaped before the war from Vienna to the Netherlands, where she became friends with Anne Frank, who lived nearby in Amsterdam and was the same age. After the German army overran the country, the Schloss and Frank families went into hiding but were discovered by the Nazis separately in 1944, the Schloss family betrayed by a Dutch woman.

Schloss and her mother survived Auschwitz, but her father and brother were killed, while Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the only survivor of his immediate family and married Schloss’ mother after the war. Otto Frank published his daughter’s now-famous diary so that the world could hear her story. Schloss has written about her own story, is a frequent speaker and would like to tell Zuckerberg of her own experience.

“It was just every day, the chimneys were smoking, the smell of burning flesh,” the 91-year-old told The Associated Press, adding that she had been separated from her mother and assumed she had been gassed.

http://www.womensystems.com/2020/07/holocaust-survivors-urge-facebook-to.html

Taliban Completes Release of Govt Prisoners: Spokesman

A Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen in a statement on Thursday said the Taliban has fulfilled its part of the US-Taliban deal, which called for the group to release 1,000 Afghan government prisoners.

He stated that the Taliban had freed another 82 prisoners on Thursday, bringing the total released by the Taliban to 1,005.

According to Shaheen, based on the Doha agreement, the Taliban has fulfilled its commitment of releasing 1,000 Afghan government forces in exchange for the 5,000 Taliban inmates to be released by the Afghan government, according to the agreement.

The Afghan government has so far released around 4,400.

On Tuesday, the Taliban announced a three-day ceasefire for Eid, to which the Afghan government also agreed. However, violence has drastically increased following the US-Taliban peace agreement which was signed between the two sides in Doha on February 29.

In the latest incident of violence, a bomb blast in Pul-e-Alam city, the capital of Logar province, has killed at least eight people and wounded 30 others, according to the MInistry of Interior.

The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter denied any involvement of the group with the Logar blast.

https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/taliban-completes-release-govt-prisoners-spokesman

US Charges Ex-Mexican Public Security Secretary for Accepting Cartel Bribes

The United States indicted Mexico’s former Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna and two senior associates in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, the Justice Department announced in a press release.

"A superseding indictment was returned… charging Genaro Garcia Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012, with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise," the release said on Thursday.

"Luis Cardenas Palomino and Ramon Pequeno Garcia, former high-ranking Mexican law enforcement officials who worked under Garcia Luna, are each charged with three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy. In exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes, the defendants allegedly permitted the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity in Mexico."

From 2001 to 2005, Garcia Luna led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency, and as secretary of public security, he controlled Mexico’s Federal Police Force.

Cardenas Palomino and Pequeno Garcia also were high-level Mexican law enforcement officials who worked under Garcia Luna during this time. They each received millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.

If convicted of the continuing criminal enterprise charge in Thursday’s superseding indictment, Garcia Luna faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment, while Cardenas Palomino and Pequeno Garcia each face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment.

He was arrested on 9 December, 2019 by federal agents in Dallas, Texas, and currently faces trial in the Eastern District of New York to face these charges. Cardenas Palomino and Pequeno Garcia are presently fugitives.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202007301080020318-us-charges-ex-mexican-public-security-secretary-for-accepting-cartel-bribes/

Edible Vaccine? PHARMING: Food that Changes YOU

We hear a lot about vaccines, but what if the real threat is something as seemingly innocuous as a tomato?

Scientists are “Pharming” tomatoes that will act as “edible coronavirus vaccines,” as we are told that GMO is mandatory in this “new normal.” The ultimate goal, they admit, is to modify the genetics of the consumer.

Is food the ultimate delivery mechanism to achieve a GMO transhuman future? Every aspect of the food supply chain is being destroyed and perverted, and you must start growing your own food for your family.

This development brings new meaning to “You are what you eat” or “Let thy food be thy medicine.”

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/07/edible-vaccine-pharming-food-that-changes-you.html

Democrat Seth Moulton: Red States ‘Getting What’s Coming to Them’ with Coronavirus

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) suggested Friday that red states are “getting what’s coming to them” in regards to the coronavirus, which has killed more than 150,000 Americans.

Moulton’s comments came during a streamed conversation hosted by the nonprofit organization 92nd Street Y with Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath, asking her if she is “seeing minds change on the ground” on the coronavirus in the Bluegrass State.

“We certainly have this perception in the Northeast that all the red states are, you know, they kind of — they’re getting what was coming to them because they refused to follow these mandates, and they’re playing politics with this rather than listening to the science,” Moulton said to McGrath, who smiled and nodded.

Liberal Dem claims “red states are getting what was coming to them” on coronavirus.

Amy McGrath smiles and nods. #KYSen pic.twitter.com/iuGPmy42fE

— Katharine Cooksey (@Cooksey__) July 30, 2020

Moulton:

I also remember saying when people asked me, ‘Hey, is McConnell in the Senate ever going to support another relief package?’ My answer was, ‘I think when they go home to their districts, it’s going to be pretty hard for them to ignore what’s going on.’ But when I said that I didn’t expect them to be facing the surge in cases that we’re seeing today.”

A clip of the conversation and remarks from Moulton were shared to social media by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s press secretary, Katharine Cooksey, who noted McGrath’s behavioral response.

Michaela Johnson, a spokeswoman for Moulton, disregarded his remarks and instead focused on McConnell’s campaign and the “cheap shots” they have taken.

Johnson stated:

While Mitch McConnell’s constituents are trying to figure out how they’re going to pay their rent and feed their kids because he’s letting their unemployment benefits expire, his staff is clipping videos in an attempt to troll his opponent on Twitter. This is a great example of why we need Amy McGrath in the Senate. McConnell and his office would do well to spend more time working to pass the relief legislation Americans so desperately need, and less time taking cheap shots on Twitter.

GOP strategist Pat Griffin issued a statement to the Boston Herald and called Moulton’s remarks an “unfortunate choice of words.”

“Obviously no one deserves to get the coronavirus,” Griffin said. “It’s obvious hyperbole, and that is the kind of hyperbole that Democrats get mad at Donald Trump of using.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/31/democrat-seth-moulton-red-states-getting-whats-coming-to-them-with-coronavirus/

When Corporate Power Is Your Real Government, Corporate Media Is State Media

The New York Times published an astonishingly horrible article the other day titled “Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic” accusing governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua of exploiting Covid-19 to quash opposition and oppress democracy.

The article sources its jarringly propagandistic claims in multiple US government-funded narrative management operations like the Wilson Center and the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Freedom House, the extensively plutocrat-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the United States Naval Academy.

The crown jewel of this piece of State Department stenography reads as follows:

“Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.”

Whoa, nelly.

I wanted to laugh but it isn't funny that the New York Times thinks it's okay to publish such a blatantly false statement. pic.twitter.com/cBlcf4aq1l

— Esha (@eshaLegal) July 30, 2020

The fact that America’s most widely regarded newspaper feels perfectly comfortable making such a spectacularly in-your-face lie on behalf of the US government tells you everything you need to know about what the mass media in America really are and what they do.

The United States has never at any time been a champion of democracy in Latin America, before or since the Cold War. It has intervened hundreds of times in the continent’s affairs throughout history with everything from murderous corporate colonialism to deadly CIA regime change operations to overt military invasions. It is currently trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela after failing to stage one during the Bush administration, it’s pushing regime change in Nicaragua, and The New York Times itself admitted this year that it was wrong to promote the false US government narrative of electoral shenanigans in Bolivia’s presidential race last year, a narrative which facilitated a bloody fascist coup.

This is propaganda. There is no other word for it. And yet the only time western politicians and news reporters use that word is to talk about nations like Russia and China.

Why is propaganda used in an ostensibly free democracy with an ostensibly free media? Why are its news media outlets so consistently in alignment with every foreign policy objective of US government agencies no matter how destructive and inexcusable? If the media and the government are two separate institutions, why do they so consistently function as though they are not separate?

Well, that’s easy. It’s because they aren’t separate. The only thing keeping this from being seen is the fact that America’s real government isn’t located where people think it is.

Corruption is Legal in America

https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig

The End of Kings

https://youtu.be/Yw0qkvvSE7s

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/when-corporate-power-your-real-government-corporate-media-state-media

Israel Revealed Details About Defected Hamas Military Commander

The Israeli Security Agency, Shin Bet, confirmed in a statement on July 30 that a commander of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, had escaped to Israel last month.

In the statement, Shin Bet named the commander as 24-year old Izz al-Din Hussein. On June 28, Hussein swam from the Gaza Strip to Israel. “Family problems” and concerns of “persecution and defamation by senior figures in Hamas” caused his escape, according to the Security Agency.

The Israeli Defense Forces shared a video of Hussein’s escape. The Israeli Navy arrested the man after entering Israeli waters. He was later handed over Shin Bet for interrogation.

בהמשך להודעת שב”כ, היום הותר לפרסום כי לפני כחודש עצרו כוחות זרוע הים חשוד שניסה לחדור בשחייה מרצועת עזה לשטחה הימי של ישראל. מערך השליטה הימי איתר את החשוד והכווין אליו את לוחמי פלגה 916 ולוחמי יחידת סנפיר של זרוע הים pic.twitter.com/fWAGHyrEp5

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) July 30, 2020

Hussein enlisted in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in 2013. Five years later, he began working for the brigades’ air-defense units.

According to Shin Bet, Hussein was given an anti-aircraft missile that he kept at his home. He was ordered to launch the missile at an Israeli helicopter if one flew nearby in order to kill or abduct Israeli soldiers.

“Hussein’s activities in Hamas and the vast knowledge he acquired through his work… revealed to the Shin Bet a great deal of intelligence about Hamas,” Shin Bet said in its statement.

Hussein will be tried in Israel. In the Beesheba District Court he was indicted on several security-related charges.

Earlier this month, the al-Arabiya TV reported that a military figure of Hamas had defected to Israel. Nevertheless, the UAE-based channel falsely claimed that this figure was Hamas’ Naval Forces commander, Mohammed Omar Abu Ajwa.

While the defection of Hussein is a major blow to Hamas’ military wing, it is unlikely to have any real consequences of the way the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades operate.

https://southfront.org/israel-revealed-details-about-defected-hamas-military-commander-video/