"In July, the State Water Resources Control Board passed stage one emergency regulations, giving powers to all local water agencies to fine $500 per violation," reports the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. [1] Keep in mind that these are only "stage one" emergency regulations. Stages two and three have yet to be invoked and will only become more severe.

The amount of water each household is allowed by water districts will be determined by government employees viewing satellite imagery of private properties, then calculating how much water that property should be allowed to use.

"Using census records, aerial photography and satellite imagery, an agency can determine a property's efficient water usage," says the SGVT.

Smartphones continue to evolve, becoming more and more like micromanagement devices in the process. These devices absorb information like a sponge, building a profile on their user, information that can easily be breached by third parties. Using GPS technology, these gadgets already detail everywhere a person goes, mapping out their travels on a computer grid, making it easy to monitor and track people's every move. On top of that, the NSA dragnets smartphone communication data, screening texts, emails and calls. Internet sites visited, credit card purchases, social media activity     all of this information can now be collected and analyzed in elaborate algorithms to market back to individuals. Smartphones are a gateway to a world where people have no private lives, a world where intelligence operations know everything about everybody.

In the worst-case scenario, the two countries could have a total of 21,000 cases of Ebola by Sept. 30 and 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 if the disease keeps spreading without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.

This week, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation announced a plan to accelerate the collection of DNA profiles for the government's massive new biometric identification database.
 
The FBI Laboratory, along with the Bureau's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, have said that they are actively collaborating to develop a streamlined approach towards automating DNA collection processes from qualifying "arrestees" and offenders that are in custody during arrest, booking or conviction.
 
The goal of the FBI plan is to integrate "Rapid DNA" technology into the the agency's biometrics-driven Next Generation Identification (NGI) system. Rapid DNA is defined as the use of portable cheek swab DNA machines in the field that can be used by law enforcement officers to initiate expedited DNA analysis. Portable DNA machines are designed to make suspect matches within 90 minutes by police officers in the field, rather than requiring days of processing by technicians in specialized laboratories

After officials in the German capital offered his parish a prime site to build a new house of worship, the Rev. Gregor Hohberg had a kumbaya moment. Why not transform a city stained by the Nazi era into a place of spiritual healing by building a church, a mosque and a synagogue all under one roof?  During a time of global religious strife, a unifying project involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, the Protestant pastor reasoned, would reverberate beyond Berlin's borders. They would call it the House of One.
 
"You can live your faith, but also tear down walls," said Hohberg, 46, who took inspiration for the idea from the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Dubai police force will soon implement a new initiative in which it will equip detectives with Google Glass eyewear to help them combat crime using facial recognition technology, according to a report by Tech2.
 
The wearable device features a small computer screen, attached to the corner of the frame, which captures photos, records video and plays audio, according to a spokesman for the Dubai police.

The number of "contact traces" for a man diagnosed with Ebola earlier this week in Dallas has risen to 100, officials say, as they add secondary contacts to a list of people being monitored for symptoms of the deadly virus.
 
Earlier today, Erikka Neros, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services department, said the number of "contact traces" stood at about 80 because the 12 to 18 people who had been exposed directly to the patient then had contact with others.
 
Hours later, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services said officials were "working from a list of about 100 potential or possible contacts."
"Out of an abundance of caution, we're starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home. The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection," the spokeswoman, Carrie Williams, said in a statement