Mass shootings in the United States: When, where they have occurred in 2019
According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 253 mass shooting incidents have occurred as of August 4.

In 2018, a total of 340 mass shooting incidents occurred across the U.S., which is a slight decrease from 346 incidents in 2017.

The number of 2019 incidents is higher than that of the same time period in 2018, in which 88 incidents occurred through May 7, 2018.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is described as four or more individuals being shot or killed in the same general time and location. The F.B.I. defines a "mass killing" as the killing of three or more people in a public place, but the federal agency also defines a "mass murderer" as someone who has killed four or more people in the same location.

The Gun Violence Archive lists itself as a not-for-profit organization that documents gun violence and gun crime nationally. abc15.com

Click image to view interactive map of 2019 shootings

Off-duty police back at El Paso Walmart stores
No armed security at store before Saturday attack
There used to be at least one off-duty officer providing security and as many as three when stores expected big crowds, according to police officers and Walmart employees who spoke to El Paso Inc. last week without giving their names.

"Even with one, it could have turned out different," an El Paso police officer said at the crowded memorial site Thursday evening for the 22 people killed.

"They hired us back this week. If they want us, we'll be here," the policeman said in the company of other officers who were providing security at the impromptu gathering area behind the Walmart that has become a shrine to the victims.

Since the shooting, off-duty police officers have reappeared at Walmart entrances, but Hargrove wouldn't say whether it's a permanent change. elpasoinc.com

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Is Walmart doing enough to protect workers in its supply chain?
The retailer has been auditing, investigating and reporting on its supply chain to clean up labor abuses, but experts say many of the current best practices fall short.

By the retail giant's own count, it involves some 100,000 suppliers. If truly understanding the size of that network of manufacturers, distributors, subcontractors and so on is difficult, monitoring the goings on of each firm in detail is truly daunting. Yet a decade and a half ago, Walmart was doing less than many of its peers to monitor its suppliers for labor abuses. 

In 2006, the sovereign wealth fund of a country known for its own happy workers concluded that Walmart was contributing to human rights violations around the world, both in the retailer's own operations and in its massive supply chain.

When Norway's Government Pension Fund Global excluded Walmart's stock from its investment portfolio more than a decade ago, the fund's ethics council cited reports of employee abuse, safety violations, worker intimidation, unpaid overtime and numerous issues at the retailer's suppliers. The council said Walmart's internal procedures were unequipped to uncover abuses.

This summer, after 13 years, the Norway fund reversed its stance on Walmart.

Still, the progress at Walmart cited by the Norway fund is a testament to changes the retailer has made in its practices. It's a badge of honor, or at least the removal of a badge of shame. It is symbolism that matters as investors and consumers around the world pay more attention to the human and environmental cost of putting products on shelves.

For its part, Walmart - which has around 150 employees in its responsible sourcing unit - says it focuses its efforts on countries where the risks of abuse are greatest. retaildive.com

Politicians Focusing on Regulating Law Enforcement Usage
How facial recognition became the most feared technology in the US
Two lawmakers are drafting a new bipartisan bill that could seriously limit the use of the technology across the US.

Across the US, local politicians and national lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have started introducing rules that bar law enforcement agencies from using facial recognition technology to surveil everyday citizens.

In just the past few months, three cities - San Francisco, Oakland, and Somerville, Massachusetts - have passed laws to ban government use of the controversial technology, which analyzes pictures or live video of human faces in order to identify them. Cambridge, Massachusetts, is also moving toward a government ban. Congress recently held two oversight hearings on the topic and there are at least four pieces of current federal legislation to limit the technology in some way.

Facial recognition is a rare case where regulators are working together - on a bipartisan level, no less - to try to get ahead of technology instead of catching up to it.

So far, this impending wave of legislation hasn't prevented private companies from using the technology. Even in cities like San Francisco with facial recognition bans, companies like Apple are still free to sell cellphones that have facial recognition built into their products. That's a different and less controversial application of the technology, mainly because consumers have the choice not to use it. And if companies don't properly notify users when it employs this tech, like a federal court recently found Facebook guilty of, they could face legal and financial penalties. vox.com

Stopping America's next hate-crime killers on social media is no easy task
Not Enough Manpower & It's Like Predicting Where Lightning is Going to Strike
The pattern is clear: Hate-filled manifestos posted on websites populated by white supremacists, followed by gun attacks against blacks, Jews, Muslims, or Latin American immigrants.

In some cases, the killers use their internet posts to praise previous attacks by other white nationalists. And after new assaults, the manifestos get passed around, feeding the cycle of propaganda and violence. Following the racially-motivated attack that killed 22 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, President Donald Trump said he wants police to do more to stop extremists who are active online before they can turn to murder.

Trump said after the mass shootings last weekend in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that he would ask the Justice Department to work with local, state and federal agencies as well as social media companies "to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike."

He's met with internet and technology companies on Friday to discuss violent extremism online.

Even before those attacks, The FBI in early July requested bids for a contractor to help it detect national security threats by trawling through social media sites.

There is not enough technology to properly monitor the internet," he said. "This is the number one thing we always say in law enforcement: 'You can't stop crazy. You can't even predict crazy.'" reuters.com

Dozens Arrested at #JewsAgainstICE Protest at Amazon Store in NYC
Jewish community groups protesting Amazon Web Service's (AWS) cloud computing contracts with and other technical support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement say that dozens of their members were arrested at an Amazon Books store in Manhattan on Sunday.

Sophie Ellman-Golan, volunteer organizer with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and one of the leaders of Never Again Action, told Gizmodo the #JewsAgainstICE protest drew around 1,000 participants and resulted in roughly 40 arrests of demonstrators, including rabbis and other prominent members of New York's Jewish community.

The activists rallied on Sunday outside the Amazon retail location on East 34th St. to draw attention to AWS cloud contracts with ICE and Palantir Technologies, which provides the agency with data for use in immigration raids and other enforcement actions. gizmodo.com

Lawmakers jump-start talks on privacy bill
With New Labor Day Deadline
Lawmakers are working through the August recess to cobble together legislation on data privacy after missing a deadline they set to unveil a bill before the summer break.

California's strict new privacy law is slated to take effect in January, raising the stakes for lawmakers who were hoping to pass a federal law before the stringent state-level rules go into place.

 But just before the recess, a series of leaks revealed that Cantwell's office was passing around a privacy framework that would allow consumers to sue companies for mishandling their data. That "private right of action" is a non-starter for industry and Republicans. 

Other prominent sticking points in the negotiations have included the Republican push to include preemption, which would allow the federal law to override state laws. Preemption has been a top priority for the tech industry, which has warned against a "patchwork" of state laws, but Democrats insist they won't approve any law that is weaker than the California one. thehill.com

The Nationwide Decriminalization Impact
Crime and Non-Punishment in NYC
A case study in the cost of abandoning 'broken-windows' policing.

Public order is eroding as the city's progressive leaders have slammed the brakes on "broken-windows" policing.

Mr. Giuliani's police commissioner, Bill Bratton, understood that the erosion of public order creates the conditions for more serious crimes. New Yorkers are beginning to experience the decline resulting from the city council's decriminalization in 2017 of quality-of-life offenses like public urination and subway hopping.

Arrests dropped 90% in the first 16 weeks after the decriminalization law was enacted. Last month the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice touted that jail admissions had dropped 50% over the past five years and 20% since last year. The rate of incarceration is the lowest since 1978 as more criminals are being allowed to walk.

The most visible results have been dirtier streets and rising public drug use, but things could quickly get worse. In the spring the state Legislature essentially eliminated cash bail, which NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill warned will force police to "release habitual criminals to return to their chronic offenses, whether violent crimes, burglaries, drug trafficking, or grand larcenies."

Had the law been in effect last year, about 16,000 offenders with prior arrests involving force, weapons or sex offenses would have been released without even being held for arraignment. "Our current low crime levels aren't a permanent achievement," Mr. O'Neill noted. "They are a continuing challenge." wsj.com

Editor's Note: Even the news outlets who tend to be more supportive of such actions are starting to report on the problems the trend is creating in the big cities. It certainly supports the increase in retail LP jobs we're seeing this year.

Crime Stats Over the Next Few Years Won't Reflect Reality
With rising felony thresholds, DA's across North America going on record about not prosecuting and actually bragging about reduced incarceration numbers, the next few years we'll start to see crime reports that are inaccurate and not reflecting true crime trends.

The FBI Crime Index, which is currently being revamped, and is the nation's supposedly leading crime report, already has significant weaknesses and without state and local support and funding will be even less of a barometer.

What will be really interesting is if we start seeing politicians and cities claiming reduced crime rates as a success story, which usually is the case during election cycles.

The issue is that retailers will have to depend more on direct industry information, knowledge, and networking. - Gus Downing

Any products on your shelves?
Owner Of NYC Consumer Products Testing Company AMA Arrested
Tens of Millions of Dollars Fraud Scheme - Fabricating Test Results
Former Executives and Supervising Laboratory Technician Have Pleaded Guilty in Multi-Million Dollar Scheme

GABRIEL LETIZIA, Jr., the owner and executive director of AMA Laboratories, Inc. AMA is a consumer products testing company in Rockland County, New York. LETIZIA is AMA's owner and executive director. AMA tested the safety and efficacy of cosmetics, sunscreens and other products on specified numbers of volunteer panelists for consumer products companies. 

From 1987 through April 2017, LETIZIA and others at AMA defrauded AMA's customers of tens of millions of dollars by testing products on materially lower numbers of panelists than the numbers specified and paid for by AMA's customers. LETIZIA, and AMA employees acting under his direction, sent the customers fraudulent reports, which falsely represented to the customers that AMA had tested the products on the number of panelists specified by the customers. LETIZIA and AMA employees acting under his direction also made materially false and misleading statements about the results of the tests to AMA's Customers. justice.gov

SEC Aims to Ease Disclosure Rules & Risk Factors
The commission proposes a more principles-based, less-prescriptive approach to business description and risk factor disclosures. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday proposed revisions to disclosure rules that would ease the compliance burden for publicly held companies.

The amendments would relax the prescriptive nature of Regulation S-K items 101 (description of the business) and 105 (risk factors). cfo.com

NOAA increases chance for above-normal hurricane season
The end of El Nino could boost Atlantic hurricane activity.

NOAA forecasters monitoring oceanic and atmospheric patterns say conditions are now more favorable for above-normal hurricane activity since El Nino has now ended. Two named storms have formed so far this year and the peak months of the hurricane season, August through October, are now underway.

The number of predicted storms is also greater with NOAA now expecting 10-17 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 5-9 will become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater), including 2-4 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater). This updated outlook is for the entire six-month hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.  noaa.gov

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