Daily household water allocation could be the next California drought strategy

As California’s severe drought moves into a fourth year, state and local water agencies are working on something called “allocation-based rate structures,” a kind of precursor to water rationing that’s all the rage in Sacramento and in some areas such as Santa Cruz, Irvine and Santa Monica. Here’s how it works: Your local water company, special district or city assigns you and your household a number in gallons — a daily water allocation.

Harvard Gives Student Full Ride After He Tells Them He’s Illegal Immigrant

When Dario Guerrero, an illegal immigrant who found out about his status in high school, told Harvard that he was in the country illegally, the school encouraged him to apply–and gave him a full scholarship after he was accepted. Writing in the Washington Post, Guerrero, who is currently a junior at the university, said after an MIT official recommended that he not apply to the school during a trip to visit college, he “left the office in a daze” because MIT had been his dream school. He started walking down Massachusetts Avenue” and, “without really planning it, I found myself in the middle of Harvard.

Prepping: The Only Way to be Ready for Anything is to be Ready for Anything

Most of the time, no one actually expects the S to HTF on that particular day. Most folks don’t go through their lives expecting one specific event to occur, and then have it unfold according to a predetermined script. Two weeks ago, I didn’t get up in the morning expecting some jerk to get mad at his girlfriend, light a tree in her yard on fire, and set off a 100,000 acre forest fire.

Incest is a ‘fundamental right’, German government committee says

Laws banning incest between brothers and sisters in Germany could be scrapped after a government ethics committee said the they were an unacceptable intrusion into the right to sexual self-determination. “Criminal law is not the appropriate means to preserve a social taboo,” the German Ethics Council said in a statement. “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.

CDC: Respiratory illnesses up to 277 confirmed cases in 40 states

The number of confirmed cases of an uncommon respiratory illness has increased to 277 in 40 states and the District of Columbia, affecting mostly children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. First identified 50 years ago, Enterovirus 68 or EV-D68 was rarely tested for and only began getting attention last month as hundreds of cases were linked to the virus. “The severity is what triggered our concern,” said Mark Pallansch, director of the CDC’s Division of Viral Diseases.

The Reason College Costs More Than You Think

Nearly nine out of 10 freshmen think they’ll earn their bachelor’s degrees within the traditional four years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. But the U.S.

Cop’s Tip For Not Getting Raped By A Cop: ‘Don’t Get Pulled Over’

In response to the arrests of three law enforcement officials in Oklahoma for sexually assaulting women while on the job, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper told women they can avoid getting raped by a cop if they simply follow traffic laws. Raw Story first pointed out on Tuesday that Capt. George Brown, a state trooper, shared a few tips for women in an interview with local NBC News affiliate KJRH.

107,581,000 Americans Already in Government Health Plans

There were 107,581,000 people enrolled in government health insurance plans in the United States in 2013, the year before the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) was fully implemented. The Census Bureau published this number last week in its annual report on health insurance. These 107,581,000 pre-Obamacare government-health insurance enrollees equaled 34.

100 Christians, Including Children, Arrested During Major House Church Raid in China

Over 100 Christians, including children, were arrested during a major house church raid on Sunday in Foshan city in China’s Guangdong Province. Close to 200 police officers stormed in during the service, eyewitnesses said, believed to be part of a large-scale crackdown on Christians in the country. “We don’t know exactly why they raided our church,” a local believer told watchdog group International Christian Concern, which has been keeping track of the rising tide of persecution in China.

‘Shemitah’ starts at sundown: Are you ready?

The ancient principle of the “Shemitah” goes back 3,000 years to the time of Moses, but a rabbi from New Jersey is warning Americans to pull out their Bibles and take note. The year of the Shemitah, also called the Sabbath year, begins at sundown Wednesday with the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and continues through Sept. 13, 2015.

Should U.S. modify nuclear treaty to confront Chinese threat?

After Russia tested a ground-launched cruise missile two months ago to break the its landmark nuclear limitation treaty signed with the US in 1987, Evan Braden Montgomery, a defense expert from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the United States has been debating whether or not to modify the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, reports National Interest magazine. The treaty was a landmark arms agreement which successfully prevented both the US and Soviet Union from fielding surface-to-surface ballistic and cruise missiles carry conventional or nuclear warheads within a range of 500-5500 kilometers. The State Department announced that Russia had violated the treaty to test a prohibited weapon in late July.

ISIS fighters ‘have returned to America’ U.S. officials say

The FBI is monitoring a number of US citizens who have returned to America after fighting for the jihadist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State (Isil), the US has confirmed for the first time. An administration official told Time magazine that the US National Counterterrorism Center believes that approximately 100 US citizens have gone on jihad, but declined to specify how many have returned to the US. “It includes those who’ve gone, those who’ve tried to go, some who’ve come back and are under activeâ?

Video: Cop Insists Travel is a Privilege Granted by the State

Back when the Constitution was drafted the founders did not explicitly include the right to travel. Although the Articles of Confederation recognized the freedom of movement under Article 4, the founders considered this right so fundamental they felt it did not need specific enumeration in the Constitution. So essential was the natural right of travel and freedom of movement considered, it was spelled out in Article 42 of the Magna Carta in 1215.

‘Moderate’ U.S. Armed Syrian Rebels Slam Obama’s Airstrikes On Extremists

The so called ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria who have received arms and training from the US, have condemned the US led airstrikes on ISIS extremists, underscoring the fact that their fight is against the Syrian government, not the terrorists the Obama administration claims it is funding them to fight. The US-backed Harakat Hazm rebel group in Syria, which consists of an estimated 7000 fighters who have been given US weapons, slammed the US led airstrikes Tuesday, according to reports. “The sole beneficiary of this foreign interference in Syria is the [President Bashar] Assad regime, especially in the absence of any real strategy to topple him,” a statement posted by the group on Twitter reads.

Mortgage Originations Down By 60-70%…..But Everything Is OK!

Mortgage originations for the first quarter of this year fell off a cliff.  JPMorgan reported a decline of 71 percent, as I recall, and I think Citibank reported a drop of 66 percent.  Now, the second quarter’s bloodletting has come in and the numbers are about the same… down more than 60 percent year-over-year, if memory serves and it often does.

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