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Russian prosecutors drop murder charges against sisters who stabbed their abusive father


RFE/RL
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:47 UTC
Khachaturyan
Maria (left) and Angelina Khachaturyan, sisters who admitted killing their father, are shown in court in June.
Russia's Prosecutor-General's Office has ordered investigators to drop murder charges against teenage sisters accused of killing their abusive father in a closely watched case that fueled debate on the issue of domestic violence in the country.

Prosecutors on January 30 said the case of sisters Maria, Angelina, and Krestina Khachaturyan should be reclassified as self-defense, likely ending the legal case against the three, their lawyer said.

The sisters stabbed their father to death in a Moscow suburb in July 2017 after enduring what they said was constant humiliation and sexual abuse.

The three sisters confessed to using a knife and a hammer to kill their 57-year-old father, Mikhail Khachaturyan.

Comment: See also: 3 daughters stab father to death after years of alleged abuse in Moscow horror drama

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Bacon n Eggs

Tim Hortons pulls Beyond Meat products from Ontario and British Columbia after proving unpopular with diners

Arunima Kumar and Hilary Russ
Reuters
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 02:34 UTC
beyond meat burger
© Facebook/Beyond Meat
Restaurant Brands International Inc's Tim Hortons said on Tuesday it has removed Beyond Meat Inc's products from its coffee and donut shops in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.

This comes after the coffee and breakfast chain cut Beyond Meat's burgers and sandwiches from its menu in September from all of Canada except the two provinces.

"We may offer plant-based alternatives again in the future, but we have removed it from the menu for now," said a spokeswoman for Tim Hortons.

Comment: That the plant-based faux meat products have "gained popularity" seems to be directly contradicted by the above article. Could it be that people aren't as enthusiastic about replacing real food with fake alternatives as the hype would have you believe? Fast food chains look at little else but the bottom line, so the true test of the popularity of these hyper-processed monstrosities will be whether or not they continue to be on offer beyond the initial boost of curious dabblers.

See also:

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Binoculars

Flashback Undoing the dis-education of Millennials

Adam J. MacLeod
New Boston Post
Thu, 09 Nov 2017 09:33 UTC
millennials
I teach in a law school. For several years now my students have been mostly Millennials. Contrary to stereotype, I have found that the vast majority of them want to learn. But true to stereotype, I increasingly find that most of them cannot think, don't know very much, and are enslaved to their appetites and feelings. Their minds are held hostage in a prison fashioned by elite culture and their undergraduate professors.

They cannot learn until their minds are freed from that prison. This year in my Foundations of Law course for first-year law students, I found my students especially impervious to the ancient wisdom of foundational texts, such as Plato's Crito and the Code of Hammurabi. Many of them were quick to dismiss unfamiliar ideas as "classist" and "racist," and thus unable to engage with those ideas on the merits. So, a couple of weeks into the semester, I decided to lay down some ground rules. I gave them these rules just before beginning our annual unit on legal reasoning.

Here is the speech I gave them.

Comment: The article was published back in 2017, yet its essence applies even more strongly to what passes for education in the West today. See also,

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Clock

'Spring forward' to daylight saving time brings surge in deadly crashes, study

Lisa Marshall
CU Boulder Today
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 08:12 UTC
highway traffic
Fatal car accidents in the United States spike by 6% during the workweek following the "spring forward" to daylight saving time, resulting in about 28 additional deaths each year, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research.

The study, published today in the journal Current Biology, also found that the farther west a person lives in his or her time zone, the higher their risk of a deadly crash that week.

"Our study provides additional, rigorous evidence that the switch to daylight saving time in spring leads to negative health and safety impacts," said senior author Céline Vetter, assistant professor of integrative physiology. "These effects on fatal traffic accidents are real, and these deaths can be prevented."

The findings come as numerous states are considering doing away with the switch entirely amid mounting research showing spikes in heart attacks, strokes, workplace injuries and other problems in the days following the time change.

Driving tired, in the dark

For the study - the largest to date to assess the relationship between the time change and fatal motor vehicle accidents - the researchers analyzed 732,835 accidents recorded through the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System from 1996 to 2017. They excluded Arizona and Indiana, where daylight saving time was not consistently observed.

Comment: See also:

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Dollars

Coronavirus outbreak: Following the money

Kit Knightly
OffGuardian
Sat, 25 Jan 2020 07:59 UTC
wuhan outbreak
The Coronavirus is still the big-ticket news item, with confirmed cases now covering 11 countries. ELEVEN!

Most of the mainstream media are doing that, saying the number of countries rather than the number of people. I suppose because it carries the implication that, somehow, everyone in all those 11 countries is under some kind of imminent threat.

As of the time of writing, the real (or at least reportedly real) numbers stand at 1407 cases, 41 deaths. Which means the mortality rate is now actually below 3%.

For comparison's sake - the death rate of the Ebola virus is 90%, Bubonic plague 40-60%, Smallpox was ~30%, and the 1918 Spanish flu between 10 and 20%. So we're hardly dealing with a big-hitter here.

Even the hysterical-nothing burger that was SARS had a (reported) death rate approaching 10%. [For more on the links between SARS and the Wuhan outbreak see John Rappoport's excellent work on the subject].

Comment: See also:

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Candle

Mexican conservationist Homero Gómez González was reported missing by his family on January 14, found dead in well

Jessica Corbett
The Mind Unleashed
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
Homero Gonzalez
Mexican conservationist Homero Gómez González was found dead Wednesday, about two weeks after he was reported missing, provoking a wave sorrow from allies and advocates worldwide as they honored his work running a butterfly sanctuary in the state of Michoacán.

"Authorities found Gómez González's body floating in a well in the community of El Soldado de Ocampo, not far from the butterfly sanctuary," according to the Washington Post. "Authorities told local media outlets that his body did not show any obvious signs of violence. But Gómez González's friends didn't have any details."

As Common Dreams reported last week, human rights advocates have expressed fears that Gómez González may have been targeted because of his activism by those involved in the local illegal logging industry, and the 50-year-old butterfly defender's family told the media that he had received threats from a criminal organization.

Gómez González was reported missing by his family on Jan. 14, a day after he attended a meeting in the village of El Soldado. BBC News noted Thursday that "more than 200 volunteers had joined the search for the environmentalist and, last week, the entire police forces of Ocampo and neighboring Angangueo were detained for questioning."
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Cross

Islamic texts permit entry of women to mosques: Indian Muslim board to Supreme court


The Hindustan Times
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 00:00 UTC
Muslim women praying
© PTI photoThe petition argued that women could only offer prayers at mosques of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Mujahid denominations but were barred from mosques under the predominant Sunni denomination.
The Muslim Personal Law Board said Muslim women were free to enter a mosque for prayers but underlined that it was not obligatory on women, unlike men, to offer Friday prayers in congregation.

Islamic texts do not prohibit entry of women into mosques and all fatwas that contradict this tenet should be ignored, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has told the Supreme Court in an affidavit.

The Muslim Personal Law Board said Muslim women were free to enter a mosque for prayers but underlined that it was not obligatory on women, unlike men, to offer Friday prayers in congregation.
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NPC

Diversity checklist: Doctor Who unveils a black female Doctor despite massive ratings slump

Martyn Andrews
RT
Wed, 29 Jan 2020 14:15 UTC
black woman Doctor Who
© Twitter / Doctor Who Official
Thirteen is an unlucky number, even for an alien Time Lord wanting attention. UK TV classic Doctor Who, amid a massive ratings slump, has unveiled a new incarnation of the lead character - injected with a new level of diversity.

As a striking male fantasy character, the time-and-space-traveling Doctor has come in all shapes and sizes since the show started in 1963, but it was actress Jodie Whittaker who became the 13th Doctor and first female to take over the role in a 2017 Christmas special that got everyone talking.

In a subversive twist, this week's episode introduced a black tour guide in the English city, Gloucester named Ruth Clayton, portrayed by Jo Martin, who surprisingly announced that she was also the Doctor.

Comment:

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Microscope 2

First case of coronavirus confirmed in Chicago; second case confirmed in US - UPDATE

Kristen Thometz
WTTW
Fri, 24 Jan 2020 12:39 UTC
american airlines ohare chicago
The first case of a new and potentially deadly virus circulating in China has been confirmed in Chicago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient, a Chicago woman in her 60s, returned to the United States on Jan. 13 from Wuhan, China, where an outbreak of respiratory illness called the novel coronavirus has been ongoing since December 2019, according to the CDC.

Authorities said the patient remains hospitalized but is in stable condition and doing well. She didn't have symptoms at the time of travel, according to health officials, who declined to say what airline she flew on.

Comment: Update Jan 30: RT reports that the first US case of person-to-person coronavirus transmission has been recorded as the husband of the above Chicago patient has now been infected.
Patients in the five 2019-nCoV cases previously confirmed in the US all contracted the infection in China. As of Wednesday, the CDC was monitoring an additional 160 people across 36 US states. Of those, 68 have tested negative for the virus, while the results for the remaining 92 are still pending.

Thursday's revelation means the US is now the fifth confirmed country with a direct transmission case of the virus. Since its emergence in China's Hubei province on December 31, the coronavirus has infected at least 8,130 people in China and another 100 or so elsewhere. At least 100 patients have died.


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NPC

UK TV presenter resigns over 'angry ape' race row: 'Found guilty of quoting Shakespeare by woke snowflakes'


RT
Thu, 30 Jan 2020 22:19 UTC
Shakespeare engraving
© Global Look Press / H.-D. FalkensteinHistorical engraving, 1623, portrait of William Shakespeare
A British TV news presenter caught up in an online race row with a black man after quoting Shakespeare at him has apologized and resigned from his role, prompting anger on Twitter from those saying he has nothing to apologize for.

Alastair Stewart, a news anchor for ITN, announced on Wednesday that he was stepping down from his duties, adding that he was sorry for his "errors of judgment," during his debate with Martin Shapland on Twitter. Stewart has since deleted his social media account.

Stewart and Shapland had engaged in a row over the relationship between the Crown and taxpayer funds. During their altercation, the TV presenter quoted a speech from the Shakespeare play Measure for Measure, which includes the words "angry ape."

Comment: Because feelz!

So there you have it. The bubble-wrapped SJW's destroy yet another person's livelihood, as thirty-plus years of post-modernism infesting public education comes to fruition.

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