Archive for November, 2016

Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced today a judge sentenced Chalice Zeitner to more than 25 years in prison after Zeitner faked cancer to qualify for a taxpayer funded abortion and scammed veterans charities out of more than $15,000. Zeitner was convicted of 17 felonies at two separate trials. The Attorney General’s Office prosecuted this case after an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Phoenix Field Office and AHCCCS.

“Zeitner is a con-artist who brazenly stole money from veterans and the taxpayers of Arizona,” said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “Our office has built a strong partnership with the FBI to investigate and prosecute complex fraud cases like Zeitner’s and seek justice for the victims.”

“The crimes for which Ms. Zeitner has been convicted are particularly offensive, from defrauding veterans’ charities to faking cancer in order to receive a government-funded, late-term abortion. The FBI is committed to protecting the public from frauds and is well-situated to investigate frauds occurring in multiple states and jurisdictions,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael DeLeon. “I would like to thank Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for dedicating the resources necessary to prosecute Ms. Zeitner.”

In April 2016, a jury convicted Zeitner of fraud and other charges for faking a cancer diagnosis to get the state to pay for a late-term abortion. In August 2016 after a separate trial, a jury convicted Zeitner of Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices and Theft for scamming veterans charities out of $15,000 and charging more than $25,000 to a fraudulently obtained credit card associated with a family member of an owner of a veterans charity.”

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“With more Americans hitting the road — and the skies — for the Thanksgiving holiday, travelers stuck at airports can expect longer lines and bigger headaches.

The busiest airport is expected to be Chicago O’Hare International Airport, followed by Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport, according to an analysis by the travel site Orbitz.com.

Airport officials expect 2.3 million travelers to fly through LAX during the holiday week, an 8% increase from the record set in 2015.

But the busiest airports don’t always cause the worst headaches.”

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“We leave behind trace chemicals, molecules and microbes on every object we touch. By sampling the molecules on cell phones, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences were able to construct lifestyle sketches for each phone’s owner, including diet, preferred hygiene products, health status and locations visited. This proof-of-concept study, published November 14 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have a number of applications, including criminal profiling, airport screening, medication adherence monitoring, clinical trial participant stratification and environmental exposure studies.

“You can imagine a scenario where a crime scene investigator comes across a personal object — like a phone, pen or key — without fingerprints or DNA, or with prints or DNA not found in the database. They would have nothing to go on to determine who that belongs to,” said senior author Pieter Dorrestein, PhD, professor in UC San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “So we thought — what if we take advantage of left-behind skin chemistry to tell us what kind of lifestyle this person has?”

In a 2015 study , Dorrestein’s team constructed 3D models to illustrate the molecules and microbes found at hundreds of locations on the bodies of two healthy adult volunteers. Despite a three-day moratorium on personal hygiene products before the samples were collected, the researchers were surprised to find that the most abundant molecular features in the skin swabs still came from hygiene and beauty products, such as sunscreen.

“All of these chemical traces on our bodies can transfer to objects,” Dorrestein said. “So we realized we could probably come up with a profile of a person’s lifestyle based on chemistries we can detect on objects they frequently use.”

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“Marijuana was on the ballot in nine states Tuesday, gaining sometimes-sweeping approval in all but one.

California, Nevada, Massachusetts and Maine all approved measures legalizing the recreational use of the Schedule I drug, while Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota voted to allow cannabis for medical purposes only. Arizona was the lone holdout, with 52 percent of voters rejecting the recreational use legalization measure. Additionally, while Montana already had a medical marijuana law, voters decided to roll back restrictions on that law.

The recreational use of cannabis is now legal in eight states, which are home to almost a quarter of the nation’s overall population. Cannabis for medical use is now legal in 25 states and the District.

Activists are pointing to marijuana’s triumph in this election as a turning point for the drug, which is federally classified as Schedule I, indicative of the “most dangerous” label, alongside heroin and LSD. For one, California is the most populous state in the country; and Massachusetts puts the east coast on the board.

The Associated Press said, collectively, it was the closest the U.S. has ever come to a national referendum on marijuana. Under President Barack Obama, individual states have been afforded the opportunity to go forward with their own legalization measures, despite the ban on cannabis at the federal level. However, that could all change when President-Elect Donald Trump enters the office in January 2017. This could all quickly go south for marijuana activists depending who Trump appoints to his cabinet, as well as his own personal feelings on the drug. He has flip-flopped in the past, saying he supports state’s rights to choose, but also calling Colorado’s legal marijuana industry a problem.”

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