Today in the News:
– In an experiment a farm decided to feed their pigs marijuana waste
– Apple has been identified as one of the biggest tax avoiders in the US
– and China hacks US weapon designs
With Washington state about to embark on a first-of-its-kind legal market for recreational marijuana, the budding ranks of new cannabis growers face a quandary over what to do with the excess stems, roots and leaves from their plants. Susannah Gross, who owns a five-acre farm north of Seattle, is part of a group experimenting with a solution that seems to make the most of marijuana’s appetite-enhancing properties – turning weed waste into pig food. Four pigs whose feed was supplemented with potent plant leavings during the last four months of their lives ended up 20 to 30 pounds heavier than the half-dozen other pigs from the same litter. Basically they were getting the munchies and were eating more…and soon we will finally see pigs fly high a a kite, well except in New York sadly.
Apple has been accused of being “among America’s largest tax avoiders”. A Senate committee said Apple had used “a complex web of offshore entities” to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes. But it said there was no indication the firm acted illegally. Apple chief Tim Cook will go before the panel, and in prepared testimony Apple said it did not use tax gimmicks. The US Senate had said that Apple paid little or nothing on billions of dollars in profits placed in Irish subsidiaries. Apple has a cash stockpile of $145bn, but the Senate committee said $102bn of this was held offshore. Apple drew criticism three weeks ago when it sold $17bn in bonds to raise cash to fund payouts to shareholders, rather than repatriating some of its cash reserves, which would be taxed in the US. The move saved the company an estimated $9.2bn in taxes.
Chinese hackers have gotten their hands on designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, as Australian media said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia’s new spy headquarters. According to a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the compromised U.S. designs included those for combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf. Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The report did not specify the extent or time of the cyber-thefts or indicate if they involved computer networks of the U.S. government. But the espionage would give China knowledge that could be exploited in a conflict, such as the ability to knock out communications and corrupting data
Today in the News:
– In an experiment a farm decided to feed their pigs marijuana waste
– Apple has been identified as one of the biggest tax avoiders in the US
– and China hacks US weapon designs
With Washington state about to embark on a first-of-its-kind legal market for recreational marijuana, the budding ranks of new cannabis growers face a quandary over what to do with the excess stems, roots and leaves from their plants. Susannah Gross, who owns a five-acre farm north of Seattle, is part of a group experimenting with a solution that seems to make the most of marijuana’s appetite-enhancing properties – turning weed waste into pig food. Four pigs whose feed was supplemented with potent plant leavings during the last four months of their lives ended up 20 to 30 pounds heavier than the half-dozen other pigs from the same litter. Basically they were getting the munchies and were eating more…and soon we will finally see pigs fly high a a kite, well except in New York sadly.
Apple has been accused of being “among America’s largest tax avoiders”. A Senate committee said Apple had used “a complex web of offshore entities” to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes. But it said there was no indication the firm acted illegally. Apple chief Tim Cook will go before the panel, and in prepared testimony Apple said it did not use tax gimmicks. The US Senate had said that Apple paid little or nothing on billions of dollars in profits placed in Irish subsidiaries. Apple has a cash stockpile of $145bn, but the Senate committee said $102bn of this was held offshore. Apple drew criticism three weeks ago when it sold $17bn in bonds to raise cash to fund payouts to shareholders, rather than repatriating some of its cash reserves, which would be taxed in the US. The move saved the company an estimated $9.2bn in taxes.
Chinese hackers have gotten their hands on designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, as Australian media said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia’s new spy headquarters. According to a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the compromised U.S. designs included those for combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf. Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The report did not specify the extent or time of the cyber-thefts or indicate if they involved computer networks of the U.S. government. But the espionage would give China knowledge that could be exploited in a conflict, such as the ability to knock out communications and corrupting data