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Arrested Canadian Official Oversaw Russia Probe (AFP)
A senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) intelligence officer arrested this week for allegedly stealing sensitive documents oversaw an investigation into the laundering of stolen Russian funds, Canadian media reported Saturday.
The Globe and Mail said Cameron Ortis’ arrest was linked to a major corruption case that was first revealed by Sergei Magnitsky, who went public with details of a $230 million fraud scheme allegedly run by senior Russian interior ministry and tax officials.
Ortis was as recently as August said to be overseeing an inquiry into whether some of the money was funneled through Canada, the newspaper reported.

NRA Sues San Francisco over Terrorist Defamation (AP)
The National Rifle Association ‘NRA’ sued San Francisco last week over the city’s recent declaration that the gun-rights lobby is a “domestic terrorist organization.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses city officials of violating the gun lobby’s free speech rights for political reasons and says the city is seeking to blacklist anyone associated with the NRA.
It asks the court to step in “to instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”

U.S. Treasury: Crypto Could Be “Next Frontier” in the War on Terror (Nicholas Marinoff, Yahoo Finance)
A U.S. Treasury official yesterday reconfirmed the government’s concern that cryptocurrencies are being used to fund terrorist organizations and activities.
In a speech delivered to the Annual International Conference on Counterterrorism, Under Secretary Sigal Mandelker suggested that unless appropriate legislation is implemented to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges and trading ventures, terrorists could ultimately fund their activities through digital means and go completely unnoticed. 
“While most terrorist groups still primarily rely on the traditional financial system and cash to transfer funds, without the appropriate strong safeguards cryptocurrencies could become the next frontier,” Mandelker said.

Manchester Arena: Evidence Would “Help Terrorists” If Made Public (BBC)
The Manchester Arena attack coroner has ruled that evidence from MI5 and the police should be kept secret on national security grounds.
Sir John Saunders said making it public would “assist terrorists in carrying out the sort of atrocities committed in Manchester.”
The ruling makes a public inquiry more likely as it would allow evidence to be heard in closed sessions.

Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds were injured in the bombing.

Could “Microgrids” Act as PG&E Outage Safeguard? (Martin Espinoza, The Press Democrat)
Microgrid systems would allow key institutions such as hospitals, municipal utilities and certain government agencies to continue to operate in the event of a natural disaster that interrupts electrical transmission.

California Farmers Are Planting Solar Panels as Water Supplies Dry Up (Governing)
Solar energy projects could replace some of the jobs and tax revenues that may be lost as constrained water supplies force California’s agriculture industry to scale back. In the San Joaquin Valley alone, farmers may need to take more than half a million acres out of production to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which will ultimately put restrictions on pumping.
Converting farmland to solar farms also could be critical to meeting California’s climate change targets. That’s according to a new report from the Nature Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit.

Pro-Vaccination Parents Need to Be Louder to Fight the Big Platform Anti-Vax Voices Have Built (Brooke McKeever and Robert McKeever, Fast Company)
If you agree with the science, you might think you don’t need to be vocal. But research shows that building a social consensus is incredibly important in changing opinions.