BERKELEY — A UC Berkeley professor smelled a rat — over the years there had been $46,855 in damage from computers that failed, and nearly all of it seemed to affect one particular Ph.D. candidate at the college’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department.
The professor wondered if the student’s luck was really that bad, or if something else was afoot. So he installed a hidden camera — disguised in a department laptop, and pointed it at the student’s computer.
According to police, the sly move captured another Ph.D. candidate, 26-year-old Jiarui Zou, damaging his fellow student’s computer with some implement that caused sparks to fly out of the laptop.
Now, Zou has been charged with three felony counts of vandalism, related to the destruction of three computers on Nov. 9-10.
Zou was arrested on Nov. 12 at UC Berkeley’s Cory Hall and declined to talk to police, according to court records. He is due for his first court appearance on Dec. 15 and is no longer in custody, records show.
Let me explain the meaning of my headline for those of you unfamiliar with the authority of the FBI to investigate Federal crimes while State and local authorities… The FBI does not have the authority to investigate Charlie Kirk’s murder unless there was foreign involvement or a clear violation of a Federal statute. The FBI is a federal agency with nationwide jurisdiction, but it can only investigate crimes that violate federal statutes (codified mostly in Title 18 of the U.S. Code) or that have a clear federal nexus. Typical FBI crimes include:
Crimes that cross state lines (interstate kidnapping, fugitive flight, human trafficking, large-scale drug trafficking)
Crimes against federal property, employees, or programs (bank robbery, federal corruption involving federal funds, mail/wire fraud)
Specifically enumerated federal offenses (terrorism, civil-rights violations under color of law, RICO for interstate organized crime, major cybercrimes affecting interstate commerce, child exploitation material crossing state lines, etc.)
Major crimes on federal land, Indian reservations, aircraft, or maritime jurisdiction
The FBI does not have general police powers. It cannot, on its own authority, investigate ordinary murder, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, theft, or street-level drug dealing unless one of the federal elements above is present. State and local authorities handle almost all “traditional” street crime and routine law enforcement. The FBI steps in only when Congress has specifically made the conduct a federal offense or when a clear interstate/federal interest exists.
Based on the indictment of the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk — i.e., a Utah resident allegedly committed murder in Utah — the FBI has no role or jurisdiction in the matter. Yet, for some reason, the FBI is involved in the case. Why?
This brings me back to the case of Seth Rich. Seth Rich was a 27‑year‑old staffer at the Democratic National Committee who was shot and killed in Washington, D.C., in the early morning of July 10, 2016. Police found him with two gunshot wounds to the back near his home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood; he was taken to a hospital and died about an hour and a half later.
…The assassination of Charlie Kirk, if the indictment of Tyler Robinson is true, was not a Federal crime. Yet the FBI, Homeland Security and DOJ all responded initially as if it was a Federal crime. Now, the matter is being handled as a state crime with no federal jurisdiction.
Based on the video evidence and public information regarding the destructive power of a .30-06 round, I do not believe that Tyler Robinson was the shooter. In fact, I think there is ample circumstantial evidence that would warrant the FBI taking a leading role in the investigation because of possible foreign involvement in Kirk’s murder. But that apparently is not happening…
They have also released grainy, incongruous videos of ‘Robinson’.
It’s a joke they won’t release, at the very least, clear videos of their suspect.
That campus was loaded with cameras.
Why was the crime scene paved over and completely destroyed?
I am not super interested in getting into the weeds like this.
But this case has become foundational for public participation in solving crimes.
If we had had social media and cameras all over the place when JFK was assassinated, the government would never have been able to keep their role in the case secret for 60 years.
The Zapruder film would never have been kept secret and only shown to Dan Rather who either lied about it or was so dumb he could not understand what he was looking at.
Open discussion and crowd-sourced evidence is bright sunlight on any crime and should become standard and expected for all criminal cases that are important to the public.
Owens, Mel and many others have already done better work and better outreach than the government.
It’s obvious to me, the government wants to hold onto old-fashioned ways of totally controlling any subject they choose, including major crimes like Kirk’s assassination. ABN
The U.S. Air Force has deployed two B-52H Stratofortress nuclear capable bombers for operations alongside Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighters, with the aircraft staging a joint show of force on December 11.
Japanese government sources Tokyo described the show of force as a signal of alliance cohesion, while U.S. defense officials familiar with regional operations have confirmed the choice to deploy the B-52 was specifically intended to demonstrate combined long-range strike readiness.
B-52H Bomber with Japanese F-15J Fighter Escort
This follows rising tensions between Tokyo and Beijing, after Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, threatened to intervene militarily in the ongoing conflict between the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese mainland, and the Republic of China based on Taiwan, which have for decades remained in a state of civil war.
China responded to the Japanese prime minister’s threat by deploying the aircraft carrier Liaoning to conduct exercises near Japanese waters, with J-15B fighters operating from the carrier on December 6 locking onto two Japanese F-15J fighters and demonstrating the significant superiority of their sensors.
Japan responded by deploying F-2 fighters armed with anti-ship missiles to simulate strikes on the Chinese carrier group.
The rapid modernisation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has left Japan in a significantly weakened position, with the F-15J fighters that form the backbone of the fleet being long since obsolete, while even the newer F-2s are over a quarter century old and lack sufficiently long range weaponry.
American Buddhist Net 