June 6, 2016--A Quick Run Around the Web

Photograph of a crumbling staircase on an abandoned building in Portugal. Source: "The hauntingly beautiful abandoned buildings where time stands still: Eerie snaps show decaying kitchens, derelict churches and stately manors that are being reclaimed by nature"--Daily Mail. A lot more photos from different locations around Europe at the link.

• "Japanese missing boy: How did Yamato Tanooka survive?"--BBC News. 
• "Japanese boy abandoned in woods by his parents as punishment reveals he got lost when he ran crying after them as they drove away but tells his father: ‘I forgive you - you’re a good dad’"--Daily Mail.
• "Venezuelan woman shot dead during latest looting"--Reuters. "Relatives of hotel worker Jenny Ortiz, 42, said she died in hospital after being shot during the melee late on Sunday in San Cristobal, a town near the border of Colombia, where looting and anti-government protests have been occurring in recent months."

• Related: "Things Change: The Startling Contrasts Of Venezuela And Colombia"--Return of Kings. Over the last 30 years of so, Columbia has gone from a country nearly torn apart by drug cartels and guerrilla warfare, to a country surging in peace and prosperity; Venezuela has gone from peace and prosperity to the edge of being a failed state.

• "An Incredibly Accurate Facial Recognition App Is Coming — Here's What It Means for Privacy"--Mic.com. "FindFace indexes photos from VK, Russia's Facebook equivalent, matching them to uploaded photos with 70% accuracy, according to Kukharenko and Kabakov. In a practical sense, what this means is that none of us is safe from an always-probing public eye."
• "Workers at 2 Minnesota Hospitals Diagnosed with Active TB, 141 Patients ‘May Have Been Exposed’"--Breitbart. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has a large number of refugees (which have a high rate of TB), but officials would not comment on whether the two workers were refugees or involved in screening refugees.

• Related: "More than one-third of refugees in Vermont test positive for tuberculosis"--Watchdog.

• "US Cities See Unexplained Rise in Violent Crimes This Year."--AP. From the article:

Americans have grown accustomed to low crime rates since a peak in the 1990s. But law enforcement started seeing a spike last year that has continued unabated. What's unusual, however, is that it's not happening everywhere. Chicago and Los Angeles are seeing homicides on the rise, but other places like Miami and Oakland are not.

Chicago, a city long associated with violent crime that plagues its poorer neighborhoods, saw six people fatally shot over the Memorial Day weekend and 56 wounded, ending a bloody month in a bloody year. May's 66 homicides - 19 more than May 2015 and 25 more than May 2014 - raised the total number for the year past the 240 mark. That's more than 50 percent higher than last year, and puts the city on a pace to easily surpass the 500 homicides it saw in 2012.

Perhaps more significant is the number of people who are being shot; well over 1,200 as of Tuesday, which far surpasses the 800 by this time last year.

• Related: "Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance"--Chicago Magazine. An article from December 2011.
• Related: "Criminal immigrants reoffend at higher rates than ICE has suggested"--Boston Globe. "A Globe review of 323 criminals released in New England from 2008 to 2012 found that as many as 30 percent committed new offenses, including rape, attempted murder, and child molestation — a rate that is markedly higher than Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have suggested to Congress in the past."
• Why? Because they can. "Chaos Outside Webster Hall as Fans Flock to Would-Be Kanye West Concert"--NBC New York. (Warning: video plays automatically). It is interesting to note all the euphemisms used in the article in order to avoid saying "riot." From the article:

Hundreds of people packed the streets outside Webster Hall in Manhattan's East Village after Kanye West teased a surprise concert there early Monday — but the concert was ultimately canceled as the crowd grew and grew, leading to a frenzied scene that left behind smashed cars and piles of trash. 

Despite high energy at the unplanned event and a heavy police presence, no one was arrested, according to the NYPD.

• Why? Because they can. "More Trump rally clashes caught on camera: Anti-Donald supporter is caught on camera chasing a white Trump supporter and tackling him to the ground at San Jose rally"--Daily Mail. A black Muslim according to the article and the original headline (photograph from the same article). 
• "ISIS Members Posing as Refugees Planned Paris-Style Attack on Düsseldorf"--American Interest. 
• Related: Tit-for-tat. "Frenchman 'who planned 15 terror attacks targeting Muslims and Jews during Euro 2016 because he was sick of mass migration and spread of Islam' is arrested with weapons haul in Ukraine"--Daily Mail.
• "Bilderberg 2016: We can expect desperate lobbying against Brexit from Big Business"--International Business Times. (Warning: video starts automatically). "Goldman Sachs has two senior representatives on Bilderberg's steering committee: James A. Johnson, a board member of the bank, and Robert Zoellick, the chairman of Goldman Sachs' board of international advisors. We know from Charity Commission accounts that Goldman Sachs, along with BP, is one of the key funders of the group, and we also know that they've been pumping 'a substantial six-figure sum' into the Remain campaign. And Goldman Sachs doesn't spend money lightly. The Remain campaign is clearly close to whatever they have instead of a heart."