Amazing Art Made On Dusty Cars (38 Pics)

Trump asked CIA official why drone strike didn’t also kill target’s family: report

President Trump reportedly asked a CIA official why the agency didn’t kill a terrorist target's family during a drone strike.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that, after watching a recorded video of a drone strike in Syria in which officials waited until the target was outside of his family’s home, Trump asked, “Why did you wait?”

The agency’s head of drone operations explained to an “unimpressed” Trump there are techniques to limit the number of civilian casualties.

Trump called for the CIA to start arming its drones in Syria and reportedly asked for it to be started in days.

“If you can do it in 10 days, get it done,” Trump said in a meeting, according to two former officials.

Rules from the Obama administration limit the CIA’s ability to use surveillance flights.

The goal of Trump’s predecessor was to pull back the CIA to return to its core espionage mission and let the military take out terrorists, the Post reported.

Trump has advocated for swift military action to “knock the hell out of” Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces.

Trump said on the campaign trail in 2015 that he would “take out” the families of terrorists.

"When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families,” Trump previously said.

On Tuesday, Trump signaled that he wanted to pull the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria but then reluctantly backtracked a day later. He reportedly agreed to hold off until ISIS is defeated.

Fox News correspondent: ‘I think that this whole immigrant crisis is manufactured’

Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera said the immigration crisis surrounding a Central American caravan traveling to Mexico was “manufactured.”

Rivera sparred with host Sean Hannity on Thursday after saying he thought reports of the caravan had caused an overreaction.

“I think this immigrant crisis is manufactured,” Rivera said. “I think it’s an overreaction to the so-called caravan of 1,000 that is now broken up in the southern city around Puebla. … They are seeking asylum.”

Hannity insisted that migrants “crossed the border, the weak borders, and raped Americans.”

President Trump made a similar claim earlier on Thursday, saying women emigrating from Central America to the U.S. are “raped at levels nobody’s ever seen before.

Rivera insisted with “absolute certainty” that illegal immigration was at a record low.

“Illegal immigration across the southern border is near 46-year lows,” Rivera said. “We did have a spike in March, probably having to do with the demand for agricultural workers here in the southwestern part of the country.”

"Isn’t one murder, isn't one rape enough?" Hannity asked.

Rivera said he did not deny there were crimes committed against “poor, vulnerable” people making the trek to the United States to flee poor economies and violence.

“They’re seeking a better life, just like our immigrant parents sought a better life here,” Rivera said.

The Pueblo Sin Fronteras caravan has moved hundreds of people seeking political asylum in the U.S. or Mexico by foot, bus, truck or cargo train. Once they reach the city of Puebla, just south of Mexico City, most stay to schedule appointments with consulates to apply for asylum.

Organizers estimate that about 200 will not stop in Mexico but will try to make it to the U.S. border.

The caravan has been a hot topic for Trump this week who tweeted several times about the immigrants.

The president called for sending the National Guard to the border, although the Pentagon can provide few details about the plan. 

Puerto Rico to close 283 schools amid sharp enrollment drop after hurricane, economic crisis

Puerto Rico's Department of Education announced Thursday that it will close 283 schools this summer following a sharp drop in enrollment amid the island's long economic slump and the continued departure of families after Hurricane Maria.

Education Secretary Julia Keleher said there would be no layoffs, with teachers and other employees being reassigned to other schools as part of a fiscal plan that aims to save the department some $150 million.

The U.S. territory currently has more than 1,100 public schools that serve 319,000 students.

"We know it's a difficult and painful process," Keleher said. "Our children deserve the best education that we are capable of giving them taking into account Puerto Rico's fiscal reality."

Keleher said that enrollment has dropped by more than 38,700 students since just last May and that nearly half of the schools are using only 60 percent of their capacity.

After the closures, 828 public schools will remain operational. Keleher said she has invited mayors in the island's 78 municipalities to propose new uses for the shuttered schools.

The announcement of closures came two weeks after Gov. Ricardo Rossello signed a bill for implementing a charter schools pilot program in 10 percent of public schools and offering private school vouchers to 3 percent of students starting in 2019-2020 as part of an education overhaul.

Aida Diaz, president of a union that represents some 30,000 teachers, said she and others would fight the closures.

"The damage that the Secretary of Education is doing to children, youth and their parents is immeasurable," Diaz said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

Yolanda Rosaly, an Education Department spokeswoman, did not immediately return a message for comment.

Those who oppose the closures say they worry about transportation logistics and the needs of special education children. An estimated 30 percent of Puerto Rico students receive specialized education, twice the average on the U.S. mainland.

The drop in enrollment comes as roughly a half million people have fled Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland in the past decade during the long recession, including an estimated 135,000 since Hurricane Maria in September.

Georgia politician publicly uses N-word as Atlanta suburb declares Confederate History Month.

The state of Georgia did away with Confederate History Month in 2015, but last week Atlanta suburb Griffin declared April as Confederate History Month. April 26 will be Confederate Memorial Day. 

During public comments following the proclamation, a former city commissioner, who is white, used racial slurs in an exchange with current commissioner Rodney McCord, who is black.

"...There were black folks when I was growing up," said Larry Johnson, who is white. "There was white trash — my family — and there was n— town. I lived next to n— town." 

Other members of the board of commissioners tried to prevent McCord from speaking until Johnson had finished his comments, a video shows. 

Finally, McCord responded:

"I'm not going to sit here and let this man use that type of language," McCord said. "And if nobody else is offended, then I am ... The Civil War is over and he using the n-word not once, not twice — three times!"

If the state no longer has an official celebration of Confederate history, should cities continue to do so on their own? Our Breakroom panel discusses. 

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On Second Thought's Breakroom panel discusses an incident in Griffin, Georgia, where a former city official used racial slurs at a meeting where the city commission declared April Confederate History Month.

Facebook sent a doctor on a secret mission to ask hospitals to share patient data

Facebook has asked several major U.S. hospitals to share anonymized data about their patients, such as illnesses and prescription info, for a proposed research project. Facebook was intending to match it up with user data it had collected, and help the hospitals figure out which patients might need special care or treatment.

The proposal never went past the planning phases and has been put on pause after the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal raised public concerns over how Facebook and others collect and use detailed information about Facebook users.

"This work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared, or analyzed anyone's data," a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC.

But as recently as last month, the company was talking to several health organizations, including Stanford Medical School and American College of Cardiology, about signing the data-sharing agreement. 

While the data shared would obscure personally identifiable information, such as the patient's name, Facebook proposed using a common computer science technique called "hashing" to match individuals who existed in both sets. Facebook says the data would have been used only for research conducted by the medical community.

The project could have raised new concerns about the massive amount of data Facebook collects about its users, and how this data can be used in ways users never expected.

That issue has been in the spotlight after reports that Cambridge Analytica, a political research organization that did work for Donald Trump, improperly got ahold of detailed information about Facebook users without their permission. It then tried to use this data to target political ads to them.

Facebook said on Wednesday that as many as 87 million people's datamight have been shared this way. The company has recently announced new privacy policies and controls meant to restrict the type of data it collects and shares, and how that data can be used.

Led out of Building 8

The exploratory effort to share medical-related data was led by an interventional cardiologist called Freddy Abnousi, who describes his role on LinkedIn as "leading top-secret projects." It was under the purview of Regina Dugan, the head of Facebook's "Building 8" experiment projects group, before she left in October 2017.

Facebook's pitch, according to two people who heard it and one who is familiar with the project, was to combine what a health system knows about its patients (such as: person has heart disease, is age 50, takes 2 medications and made 3 trips to the hospital this year) with what Facebook knows (such as: user is age 50, married with 3 kids, English isn't a primary language, actively engages with the community by sending a lot of messages).

The project would then figure out if this combined information could improve patient care, initially with a focus on cardiovascular health. For instance, if Facebook could determine that an elderly patient doesn't have many nearby close friends or much community support, the health system might decide to send over a nurse to check in after a major surgery.

The people declined to be named as they were asked to sign confidentiality agreements.

Facebook provided a quote from Cathleen Gates, the interim CEO of the American College of Cardiology, explaining the possible benefits of the plan:

"For the first time in history, people are sharing information about themselves online in ways that may help determine how to improve their health. As part of its mission to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health, the American College of Cardiology has been engaged in discussions with Facebook around the use of anonymized Facebook data, coupled with anonymized ACC data, to further scientific research on the ways social media can aid in the prevention and treatment of heart disease—the #1 cause of death in the world. This partnership is in the very early phases as we work on both sides to ensure privacy, transparency and scientific rigor. No data has been shared between any parties."

Health systems are notoriously careful about sharing patient health information, in part because of state and federal patient privacy laws that are designed to ensure that people's sensitive medical information doesn't end up in the wrong hands.

To address these privacy laws and concerns, Facebook proposed to obscure personally identifiable information, such as names, in the data being shared by both sides.

However, the company proposed using a common cryptographic technique called hashing to match individuals who were in both data sets. That way, both parties would be able to tell when a specific set of Facebook data matched up with a specific set of patient data.

The issue of patient consent did not come up in the early discussions, one of the people said. Critics have attacked Facebook in the past for doing research on users without their permission. Notably, in 2014, Facebook manipulated hundreds of thousands of people's news feeds to study whether certain types of content made people happier or sadder. Facebook later apologized for the study.

Health policy experts say that this health initiative would be problematic if Facebook did not think through the privacy implications.

"Consumers wouldn't have assumed their data would be used in this way," said Aneesh Chopra, president of a health software company specializing in patient data called CareJourney and the former White House chief technology officer.

"If Facebook moves ahead (with its plans), I would be wary of efforts that repurpose user data without explicit consent."

When asked about the plans, Facebook provided the following statement:

"The medical industry has long understood that there are general health benefits to having a close-knit circle of family and friends. But deeper research into this link is needed to help medical professionals develop specific treatment and intervention plans that take social connection into account."

"With this in mind, last year Facebook began discussions with leading medical institutions, including the American College of Cardiology and the Stanford University School of Medicine, to explore whether scientific research using anonymized Facebook data could help the medical community advance our understanding in this area. This work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared, or analyzed anyone's data."

"Last month we decided that we should pause these discussions so we can focus on other important work, including doing a better job of protecting people's data and being clearer with them about how that data is used in our products and services."

Facebook has taken only tentative steps into the health sector thus far, such as its campaign to promote organ donation through the social network. It also has a growing "Facebook health" team based in New York that is pitching pharmaceutical companies to invest its ample ad budget into Facebook by targeting users who "liked" a health advocacy page, or fits a certain demographic profile.

Students walk out at Woodland Park H.S. in support of 2nd amendment

Some students and community members organized a pro-gun standup at Woodland Park High School on Wednesday.

A nationwide walkout was held last month to honor victims killed in the Parkland, Florida, shooting, demanding tougher gun-control laws.

Two students led the group at Woodland Park with speeches in favor of the Second Amendment and constitutional rights, KKTV reports.

“We have had a movement to spark the nation and to let them know that we are not open to a gun ban and we support our Second Amendment all day, every day,” 11th-grader Garrett Niles told the station.

“My generation specifically is facing things that have never been seen before in this nation and we need to open the door for conversation before we can truly find a solution to this problem,” junior Emily Arseneau told the station.

Students said there should be more guns, not a ban, to serve as protection.

“Solutions that I personally believe in is arming better people in our schools with more guns,” Niles said. “That’ll easily scare away a shooter any way you look at it.”

Woodland Park is about 20 miles northwest of Colorado Springs.