The Government battled against releasing the figures

Thousands of people have died within six weeks of being found 'fit to work' by the Government's disability benefits test, departmental figures show.

The Department for Work and Pensions battled for months not to release the numbers, with its chief minister Iain Duncan Smith at one point telling Parliament they did not exist.

But the statistics, released on the order of the Government's transparency watchdog, show that between December 2011 and February 2014, 2,380 people died after their Work Capability Assessment told them they should start looking for work.

The figures related to claims for the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) benefit as well as IB/SDA.

The DWP's mortality report says that a causal effect cannot be assumed from the new numbers.

"These isolated figures provide limited scope for analysis and nothing can be gained from this publication that would allow the reader to form any judgement as to the effects or impacts of the Work Capability Assessment," it says.

Iain Duncan Smith previously said such figures did not exist The DWP, which is responsible for the benefits system, initially rejected a freedom of information request by campaigning journalist Mike Sivier on the grounds that it would publish them in future.

But Mr Sivier won an appeal to the Information Commissioner (ICO), an official body which judges whether government departments are acting in a fully transparent way. The ICO said the Government had no good reason to withhold the figures.

Mr Duncan Smith later caused confusion when he told Labour MP Debbie Abraham in Parliament: "She knows very well that the department does not collate numbers on people in that circumstance."

The figures were released this morning.

Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the PCS union, which represents civil servants, said the work capability assessment should be scrapped.

"What lies behind these figures is a cruel climate generated by some politicians and sections of the media that seeks to demonise those in need and undermine public confidence in our welfare state," he said.

The 60-year-old father from north London was found 'fit to work'

A coroner has concluded for the first time that a man with severe mental illness killed himself as a direct result of being found "fit to work" by the Government's outsourced disability assessors.

Michael O'Sullivan, a 60-year-old father from north London, hanged himself after his disability benefits were removed despite the opinion of three doctors that he was suffering from recurrent depression and certified as unable to work by his GP.

Figures released last month by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that nearly 90 people died every month between 2011 and 2014 after they had been declared fit for employment after undergoing a work capability assessment (WCA).

Ministers insisted that the statistics provided no basis for a link to the Government's welfare reforms. But it has now emerged that a coroner ruled in the case of Mr O'Sullivan that the WCA and anxiety caused to him by its findings were the direct cause of his death.

Mary Hassell, the senior coroner for inner north London, wrote to the DWP warning that she believed there was a risk of similar deaths in future and demanding preventative action.

It is believed to be the first time a coroner has explicitly blamed a suicide on the welfare reforms. Mr O'Sullivan, who had a long history of debilitating mental illness, including fear of being outdoors, died in 2013 but the case has only now come to light after it was revealed by the Disability News Service.

In a formal finding following Mr O'Sullivan's inquest in January last year, Ms Hassell said: "[His] anxiety and depression were long-term problems but the intense anxiety that triggered his suicide was caused by his recent assessment by the [DWP] as being fit for work, and his view of the likely consequences of that."

The coroner further outlined her concerns in a separate document, known as a Prevention of Future Deaths report.

She wrote: "I found that the trigger for Mr O'Sullivan's suicide was his recent assessment by a DWP doctor as being fit for work... In my opinion, there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken."

There's been public outcry on social media after hundreds of children with cancer and their parents - holding a pre-cleared candlelight vigil to raise awareness of childhood cancer - were told to exit Lafayette Square outside the White House on Saturday.

The US Secret Service and Park Police barricaded the park for at least two hours based on security concerns, according to The Washington Post, disrupting an event - for which organizers had obtained a proper permit to hold - called "A Night of Golden Lights," during which participants would hold electric candles.

Attendees of the two-day event known as CureFest for Childhood Cancer told the Post that some police officers and Secret Service agents on the scene said the closure occurred because President Barack Obama had left the White House from an area near the square in order to attend the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual gala several blocks from the White House, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Shelley and Simon Saxton-Cooper died when a huge gas explosion tore through their house, causing a major fire
The cause of an explosion and fire which killed husband and wife Simon and Shelley Saxton-Cooper in Derbyshire is being treated as suspicious, Derbyshire Police said today.

Forensic teams are working to piece together the cause of the explosion and fire in which the man and woman, named locally as Simon Saxton-Cooper, 50, and his wife Shelley, 45, died on Sunday.

Police said they are now treating the incident in Riddings, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, as suspicious and Mrs Saxton-Cooper's death as murder after examinatiions revealed she had been wounded before the explosion.

Detectives said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Chief Superintendent Sunita Gamblin, of Derbyshire Police, said: "Although we haven't made formal identifications of the man and woman who died, we believe they are Shelley and Simon Saxton-Cooper.

"We believe that Shelley was wounded before the explosion and fire and we are treating her death as murder.

"We're still unable to say how either she or her husband died as post mortem examinations haven't been completed.

"Police, crime scene investigators and fire investigation specialists are working through the scene of the fire to find out exactly how it started and what happened.

"We don't believe, at this time, that anyone else is involved."

The Danish late night talk show "Natholdet" ("The Night Shift") has posted a suggested trailer of a new board game entitled the "Refugee Game", which has at least one hard copy. It challenges the players to block migrants as they attempt to enter "happy little Denmark"; and left the audience at a loss: how do you respond to such a teaser?

The trailer features a family of four, two adults and two children, playing the game, trying to block what apparently look like Middle Eastern refugees from entering into their country.

NBC 2 News is reporting a new "partnership" between the Erie County Department of Social Services and New York public schools that would place a Child Protective Services (CPS) employee in the Erie County local suburban schools several days per week.

The media unsurprisingly reports this as a way to give school staff faster access to child welfare "expertise" and also "streamlining and expediting" the CPS investigation process. That is, the news is being spun to get parents - who are now seemingly potential criminals up for investigation - to accept this new, intrusive development while your child remains a ward of the State for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Ukraine's security chief and former acting president Oleksandr Turchynov benefited from Ukraine's latest sanctions list by creating a monopoly for a gambling company linked to his family.

Ukrainian Security and Defense Council chief Oleksandr Turchynov used Ukraine's latest sanctions to benefit an associate of his family, Ukrainian media outlet Insider found.

Among the sanctioned Russian organizations, mostly banks and airlines, are two companies incorporated in Ukraine that are engaged in Ukraine's national lottery business. A total of three companies operate lottery businesses in Ukraine, with the two Russian-owned organizations controlling 95 percent of the market in 2013.

In the last few years, FBI has been dramatically expanding its biometrics programs, whether by adding face recognition to its vast Next Generation Identification (NGI) database or pushing out mobile biometrics capabilities for "time-critical situations" through its Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC). But two new developments—both introduced with next to no media attention—will impact far more every-day Americans than anything the FBI has done on biometrics in the past.

FBI Combines Civil And Criminal Fingerprints Into One Fully Searchable Database

Being a job seeker isn't a crime. But the FBI has made a big change in how it deals with fingerprints that might make it seem that way. For the first time, fingerprints and biographical information sent to the FBI for a background check will be stored and searched right along with fingerprints taken for criminal purposes.

A commissioner for the city of Berkeley, California was fired for supporting a resolution calling on the city to consider divesting from corporations that operate in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

Cheryl Davila served on the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission (HWCAC) for over seven years, where she oversaw numerous human rights resolutions. In the summer of 2014, Commissioner Davila recalled being awestruck at the violence of Israel's war on Gaza, code-named Operation Protective Edge, in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, the majority of whom were civilians, including more than 500 children.

"The Israeli bombardment was a disgraceful human rights violation that has caused a severe social welfare crisis, particularly for children, women, and the elderly in Gaza," Commissioner Davila said. Numerous human rights groups and the UN accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians and committing war crimes. "Given that Berkeley was one of the first municipalities to pass an anti-apartheid resolution in support of South African human rights, it is time for Berkeley to do the same for Palestinians who are living under an Apartheid regime," she explained. "We cannot be silent any longer."

The city of Berkeley has already approved ethical investment policies that call for divestment from fossil fuel corporations, gun manufacturers, tobacco companies, "oppressive states," and the nuclear industry.

Commissioner Davila decided to propose a measure on behalf of Palestinian human rights. She authored the resolution "Conflict in Israel's Impact on the City of Berkeley." The measure calls for the city to "examine the feasibility of divesting all City of Berkeley direct holdings in companies complicit in on-going violations of human rights and International Law under Israel's military occupation of Palestinian territories."

The resolution also recommends sending a letter from the City of Berkeley to the Board of Directors of California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), "urging them to implement their existing responsible investment policies equitably and to divest all holdings in companies complicit in on-going violations of human rights and International Law under Israel's military occupation of Palestinian territories." Its final request is to add Israel's illegal occupation to Berkeley's Oppressive States Business Policy.

Commissioners are not themselves elected; City Council members appoint commissioners to serve on the various commissions. Commissioner positions are unpaid and filled on a volunteer basis. At a commission meeting on the evening of September 16, Davila was informed that she had been fired by Council Member Darryl Moore for refusing to withdraw the resolution.

In the current historical moment in the United States, the emptying out of language is nourished by the assault on the civic imagination. One example of this can be found in the rise of Donald Trump on the political scene. Donald Trump's popular appeal speaks to not just the boldness of what he says and the shock it provokes, but the inability to respond to shock with informed judgement rather than titillation. Marie Luise Knott is right in noting that "We live our lives with the help of the concepts we form of the world. They enable an author to make the transition from shock to observation to finally creating space for action—for writing and speaking. Just as laws guarantee a public space for political action, conceptual thought ensures the existence of the four walls within which judgment operates."[1]The concepts that now guide our understanding of American society are dominated by a corporate induced linguistic and authoritarian model that brings ruin to language, politics and democracy itself.

Missing from the commentaries by most of the mainstream media regarding the current rise of Trumpism is any historical context that would offer a critical account of the ideological and political disorder plaguing American society—personified by Trump's popularity. A resurrection of historical memory in this moment could provide important lessons regarding the present crisis, particularly the long tradition of racism, white supremacy, exceptionalism, war mongering, and the extended wars on youth, women, and immigrants.

Calling Trump a fascist is not enough. What is necessary are analyses in which the seeds of totalitarianism are made visible in Trump's discourse and policy measures. One example can be found in Steve Weissman's commentary on Trump in which he draws a relationship between Trump's casual racism and the rapidly growing neo-fascist movements across Europe that "are growing strong by hating others for their skin color, religious origin, or immigrant status."[2] Few journalists have acknowledged the presence of white militia and white supremacists groups at his rallies and almost none have acknowledged the chanting of "white power" at some of his political gatherings, which would surely signal not only Trump's connections to a racist past but also to the formative Nazi culture that gave rise to the endgame of genocide.[3]