Seven Baltimore officers were so unfazed by U.S. Justice Department scrutiny of abusive policing that they kept falsely detaining people, stealing their money and property, and faking reports to cover it up, according to a damning federal indictment. Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against seven officers in Baltimore, where a consent decree approved in the final days of the Obama administration obligates police to stop abusive tactics and discriminatory practices, including unlawful stops of drivers and pedestrians. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said the investigation began about a year ago, and that his office has "quietly dropped" five federal cases brought by one or more of the officers. The announcement comes just one day after newly minted Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated that intense federal scrutiny of police might hinder their crime-fighting ability. After Kellyanne Conway retweeted a tweet that former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not stand during a standing ovation for the widow of fallen Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens, Wasserman Schultz said "that's their MO, they generate and perpetuate fake news."
Have you ever noticed a difference in the taste of a McDonald’s Coca-Cola compared to that served by other fast-food companies? If so, it’s not in your head. The fast food chain recently revealed something a lot of us have probably long been wondering: Why does the Coca-Cola taste so good at McDonald’s? According to McDonald’s, the company follows Coca-Cola’s exacting guidelines to make sure the beverage is as consistent in taste as its bottled soda. To begin with, the syrup is delivered in stainless steel containers to help preserve the flavor of the ingredients. Then, the company explains, "water and Coca-Cola syrup are pre-chilled before entering our fountain dispensers with the ratio of syrup Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Long’s one year in New England ended with a Super Bowl ring. Chris Long turned down bigger and longer contract options to ink a one-year, $2 million deal with the Patriots. Twelve months and one Super Bowl Dear Amy: This past summer, my best friend of more than 30 years, her 9-year-old daughter, her new husband and others, rented a villa in the Caribbean.
I was invited to join the group. My friend has always been very self-centered. I've always accepted this about her. On the fourth day, I was asked to move into the room with the child. Originally my friend said that I may have to do this for one or two nights, but not half the trip. When I tried to mitigate the situation calmly, she pounced. They all ganged up on me after that. However, the worst part of this situation is that while there - in a foreign country - with a child in the house - cocaine was bought, possessed and consumed. You'll never look at Subway chicken the same. MINNEAPOLIS -- The north shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota features inspiring vistas of jagged rock and tumbling waterfalls. But one scene in particular has mystified visitors and scientists for decades: Devil’s Kettle, a waterfall located in Judge C.R. Magney State Park. Water in the left fork of the waterfall in Brule River appears to simply vanish into a large hole in the rock below, according to CBS Minnesota, which previously looked into the mystery in 2012.
Some believe that the water flows underground and empties into Lake Superior. Over the decades, visitors and scientists have tossed in logs and even dye in hopes of tracing the water’s flow. “It gets ground up. In a dramatic shift from traditional policy, an internal White House review on North Korean...On April 17 at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET, Yahoo Live will live stream RX Bandits' concert from the Trocadero Theatre in Philadephia. Tune in HERE to watch!Sometimes touring can be a drag for a mid-level rock band, driving from city to city on an seemingly endless road to nowhere. But earlier this week, RX Bandits singer/guitarist Matt Embree is thrilled to be on the road between East Coast dates. "We're going on a tour of places that were in The Wire, all the cool places where they shot that show," he says, as the band heads toward the Baltimore area. "It's my all-time favorite television show." When we inform him that's one series we hadn't had the chance to catch up on, he recommends binge-watching.
"Well, you're stoked, because you can watch literally every episode in a row," he says.We try to delve a little into the band's current tour, but Embree isn't finished talking about HBO crime drama, which originally aired for five seasons from 2002 through 2008. "If you're not into the kind of show that's really slow-going and takes its time to build characters, you won't like The Wire, but I implore you to give it a shot. It's like watching a book. There's a ton of dialog and every character is really developed, way more than the average TV drama... Even people you'd consider the bad guy are humanized to the point where you're not really rooting for one person over the other."You could say that RX Bandits' music has evolved into sort of the audio equivalent of The Wire — if you were watching in on hallucinogens. Not that it has anything to do with crime, but it too is dense and not immediately easily accessible, but if you take your time to get into it, you'll find your just rewards.
Over the years, RX Bandits — which also includes guitarist/keyboardist Steve Choi, bassist Joseph Troy, and drummer Chris Tsagakis — have evolved dramatically from their early days as a ska-punk band to their current incarnation of a modern prog-rock outfit. The transition was so dramatic that Adam Lovinus of the O.C. Weekly once wrote it sounded "as though the band spent a year studying the vintage East Coast punk stylings of Television."We ask Embree about that comparison and joke maybe the writer was thinking of Embree's obsession with The Wire on television, which he can appreciate, but he feels no kinship with Tom Verlaine and company. "It's not that I don't respect Television, but I'm not really a fan of the music they created, so I don't know where that comes from at all," he says.While Embree may not be tripping on Marquee Moon, he's OK with the prog-rock connection. "That's a good description as far as music monikers go," he says. "Music monikers are usually totally annoying, but as far as what that means, which I'm assuming for most people it just means music that has a lot of parts and changes that is also rock 'n' roll.
We do have a lot of changes and a lot of different parts in our songs, so I'm alright with that."Released last year, Gemini, Her Majesty, the band's seventh album, undoubtedly has the most musical changes of RX Bandits' career. The band went into the sessions for the album with the thought of making a pure studio creation and would deal with figuring out how to perform the songs live later, which ended up posing a challenge. "There are a few songs that are really hard to pull off live, mainly because of the tons of layers of harmonies," Embree says. "The other guys are also playing intricate parts, so it's hard to be able to pull off those harmonies. We haven't been able to do two or three songs live, but we're getting there." With the use of additional technology, though, the band has been able to tackle some of its more adventurous musical creations. "Tsagakis has like a sample pad, where you can load different samples on it, but we're not like playing along with tracks. We'd never do that, but he's triggering different sounds that are on the album while he's playing drums, so it adds a whole new element to the live thing."
While RX Bandits may be pushing toward the future in their latest recordings and live performances, Embree admits his latest musical inspiration comes from the past and is probably not who you'd think. "The last person I ever studied on guitar — and this is going to sound pretty silly — is Slash," he says with a laugh. "About a year ago I started going on YouTube and watching Slash solo sets over the years and then I started watching Guns N' Roses over the years and learning all the solos."This discussion gets Embree riding a wave of nostalgia. "The first music I ever got into big time was metal," he says. "Then I got into the harder alternative stuff like Faith No More's The Real Thing. I was like 10. I was super pumped on that. Pearl Jam Ten, Metallica The Black Album, and then I went back and bought To Kill 'Em All and everything before the Black Album and Guns N' Roses, especially since I loved Terminator 2."Embree goes on to enthuse about the "You Could Be Mine" video, which pits Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator against Axl Rose.
"I was like, yeah, Axl, chills with the terminator, dude," he says.The wave of nostalgia continues as Embree recounts how his parents bought him a Fisher Price record player when he was about 4 years old. It only played 45s, so at that time, he was grooving to singles like Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts," The Fixx's "One Thing Leads to Another," Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," and the Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep." "I still love all those songs," he admits.At this point, 20 years after the band first emerged as the Pharmaceutical Bandits, and nearly 15 years after the band's current lineup first came together, Embree has no illusions that RX Bandits will ever have a hit single like the ones he grew up with, but he's OK with that. "I don't think we're a radio-friendly act," he says. "But, if for some reason, a lot of new people enjoy our music, that would be great. I'd love to have the type of fanbase we have in America — which I find humbling and empowering — in other countries. That would be a dream come true."