The Weekend Off – News You Missed

Alaska

ADN – Wasilla mayoral candidate’s war against ‘police state’ includes long-ago urge to ambush Vegas officers

Loren Means, a candidate for Wasilla mayor and a current city planning commissioner, once stalked and planned to ambush Las Vegas jail officers, and this summer he told a Wasilla police officer that a head shot was the only way to kill an officer wearing body armor.

An email about the Las Vegas incident as well as several encounters with local police surfaced Thursday in a packet Mayor Verne Rupright distributed to the Wasilla City Council.

Juneau Empire – Suspicious tree fires puzzle Forest Service

The U.S. Forest Service is investigating a string of suspicious tree fires in Juneau. Officials believe someone is intentionally burning trees by setting their leaking sap on fire. The agency has responded to at least five such calls this summer.

NewsMiner.com – Alaska tops list for women murdered by men

Alaska has again ranked highest in the United States for the rate of women murdered by men, according to crime data in a report released recently by the Violence Policy Center.

National

NY Times – The Rise of the SWAT Team in American Policing

Posse comitatus is not a phrase that trips lightly off every tongue. It is typically translated from Latin as “force of the county.” Anyone who has ever watched an old Western movie will instantly recognize the first word as referring to men deputized by the sheriff to chase down some varmints who went thataway. (Rappers and their tag-alongs later gave “posse” a different context.) The full phrase is more obscure, but the concept that it embraces is enshrined in American law. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 at the end of Reconstruction and amended but slightly over the decades, prohibits the nation’s armed forces from being used as a police force within the United States. Soldiers, the reasoning goes, exist to fight wars. Chasing local wrongdoers is a job for cops.

The Guardian – Senator Bernie Sanders ‘thinking of running for president’ in 2016

Bernie Sanders, one of the Senate’s leading liberals, said on Sunday he is thinking about running for president in 2016 as either a Democrat or an independent, in a move that could complicate Hillary Clinton’s presumed path to the White House.

Vice.com – FEMA Is Trying To Get Back $5.8M in Hurricane Sandy Aid Money

The Federal Emergency Management Agency — or FEMA — wants its money back.

The US disaster response agency is now asking Hurricane Sandy victims to return millions that it accidentally handed out following the devastating storm, which in the fall of 2012 affected the entire eastern seaboard of the US, from Florida to Maine, and as far west as Wisconsin.

International

Smithsonian – Russia Is Building a New Military Base in the Arctic

The increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean is tempting the world’s powers both with new shipping routes and with the prospect of oil and mineral riches. The climatological change in the polar region has sparked rising tensions and a rapid militarization of the region. The Moscow Times is calling it the Colder War.

BBC.co.uk – Why are First Nations women being killed?

Approximately 1,200 aboriginal Canadian women have been murdered or gone missing since 1980. In February, an Inuit woman who was passionate about ending this violence went missing herself, her body found two weeks later in New Brunswick. Her former roommates have been charged in her death.

Der Spiegel – An Inside Look at EU’s Shameful Immigration Policy

Green dots and lines document the course of the border on wall monitors in the situation room of Fortress Europe, on the 23rd floor of a skyscraper in Warsaw. Klaus Rösler, 59, a German police officer and 40-year civil service veteran, is in command. He uses terms like “storm on the borders,” “risk regions” and “overcoming crises.” Rösler is the director of the operations division at the European border agency, Frontex, and he makes it sound as though his agency is defending Europe against an enemy.

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