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Bad Guys

Sickening: Chicago man with special needs held hostage, tortured on Facebook Live, forced to say "F*** Trump" - Teens charged with hate crime

special needs held hostage, tortured chicago
© James Allsup / YouTube
Chicago police have arrested four African-American youths who were seen drinking, laughing and apparently smoking marijuana while a developmentally challenged white youth is bound, gagged and cut with a knife in a Facebook Live video.

The attackers repeatedly refer to the victim as a Donald Trump supporter in the live video, which has since been taken down, but not before others downloaded and reuploaded the file back onto YouTube.

Be advised, the content in this video is graphic and disturbing.

Comment: Stories like these seem to never end. More and more people are completely losing the plot.

Update: The suspects involved have been charged with hate crimes even though police say the incident was not about race:
The victim's parents reported their son who "has mental health challenges" as missing late Monday night, police in the suburb of Streamwood said. Around the same time they reported him missing, his parents began receiving texts from someone "claiming to be holding him captive." By Tuesday, the video of the white man being tortured was being livestreamed.

Though the attack began with a play fight between the victim and Hill, it quickly escalated. The four suspects repeatedly refer to the victim as a Donald Trump supporter in the live video, which has since been taken down from both Facebook and YouTube. The attackers cut and repeatedly hit the victim, and can be heard shouting "F*** Donald Trump! F*** white people!," "beat his ass," and "he gonna be a corpse." They also forced him to say "F*** Trump," "I love black people," and kiss the floor. The victim was tied up in a corner, and left there for "about four to five hours," Duffin said. The group also "made him drink toilet water."

[...]

Meanwhile, at the apartment, officers "discovered signs of a struggle and damage to the property and [were] able to link this evidence to the disoriented male," the Chicago Police Department said in a Facebook post. It was after finding the victim and the location of his abuse that they found out about the Facebook Live. Police believe the crimes against him took place over the course of six hours on Tuesday, based on statements by the victim and the four suspects.

Although the suspects clearly expressed racial epithets in the video, police initially refused to classify the incident as a hate crime, leading to a backlash on social media. #BLMKidnapping trended on Twitter between the police press conference on Wednesday and the announcement of charges on Thursday.



Biohazard

Thousands of North Koreans rally in support of Kim Jong-un following his New Year's 'nuke 'em' message

Kim Il Sung rally
© KCNA / AFPA mass rally taking place at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, January 6, 2017
Thousands of North Koreans have taken to the streets of the capital Pyongyang after leader Kim Jong-un, in his New Year's message, announced preparations for a test-launch of banned ICBMs were at the 'final stage.' The demonstrators gathered in Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang and chanted "long live comrade Kim Jong-un," AFP reported. Some of them were seen holding banners saying "Let us accelerate the victorious advance of socialism!"

"The people should regard Kim Jong-un's New Year address as a motto of life and struggle," KCNA state agency said, citing a North Korean official at the rally.

Kim Jong-un made the statement on Pyongyang's development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during a televised New Year's message.

Question

'Slave-labor'? ACLU condemns proposal to build Trump's wall using volunteer inmates

mexico wall
© Jose Luis Gonzalez / Reuters
A Massachusetts sheriff has offered his inmates to President-elect Donald Trump to help build the proposed wall along the US southern border.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson says Trump's proposal to build a 2,000-mile wall along the border with Mexico is a necessary step for immigration reform.

"We won't have legitimate immigration reform in this country until we build a wall," Hodgson said Wednesday, according to the Herald News.

At his swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday, the Republican sheriff made a formal offer to Trump, saying, "inmates from Bristol County and others around the nation, through Project NICE, will help build that wall."

Project NICE, which stands for National Inmates' Community Endeavors, is a work program which aims to rehabilitate inmates by giving them job skills while providing free labor for the state.

Hodgson's proposal to use Bristol inmates to build the wall was called "the debut of Project NICE" on the Bristol County Sheriff's Department's Facebook page, which also stated it would greatly expand the program to a national level "with the cooperation of Sheriff's Offices across the country, who would also send inmate workers."

Stock Up

As Russian economy strengthens more money floods in from foreign investors

Moscow Exchange
© Reuters/Maxim Shemetov
Growing optimism about Russian economy leads to rising capital inflow, strengthening rouble, and award of Europe's Banker of 2016 to Central Bank Chair Nabiullina.

Britain's The Banker magazine has named Russian Central Bank Chair Elvira Nabiullina Europe's Central Banker of 2016.

The award is being linked to the Russian Central Bank's success in bringing inflation in Russia down from 12.7% in 2015 to a post-Soviet low of below 6% in 2016 (the actual final figure will probably be 5.5% or 5.6%).

It is a matter of public record that I think that Nabiullina's high interest rate policy has been unduly harsh, and that it has prolonged Russia's recession. I also think that the single-minded focus on bringing inflation down to an annualised rate of 4% by the end of 2017 is over-ambitious, and that damage is being done to the real economy in order to achieve it.

Having said this, The Banker's award does offer a rare recognition not just of the level of economic competence of Russian officials, but also of the fact that inflation reduction not GDP growth is their current priority.

On the question of GDP growth, early indications are that it might be higher this year than earlier forecasts had predicted, with evidence in the final quarter of 2016 that the economy was recovering more strongly than expected. Former Finance Minister Kudrin, a consistent pessimist about the Russian economy from within the government who is however also Nabiullina's strong ally, is now predicting GDP growth to rise to 3.5% by 2019, reaching the target rate of 4% by 2021.

Handcuffs

Suspect beaten by officer has charges dropped after video released

Garrett Kimmell Joshua Brooks
Brooks accuses Kimmell of using excessive force as he is manacled to the bench
A disturbing video was released this week showing an altercation between a police officer and a 21-year-old man arrested on suspicion of heroin possession. The video shows an attack by the officer and subsequent defense by the 21-year-old.

While the incident happened in 2015, Todd Hollis, the attorney for the 21-year-old suspect, Joshua Brooks, waited to release the video and file the lawsuit until after the criminal charges against Brooks were resolved.

On April 17, 2015, Brooks was arrested on charges of suspicion of heroin possession. He was brought into the custody of the Elizabeth Borough police department and chained to a bench.

As the altercation begins, Brooks is seen standing up when officer Garrett Kimmell approaches and tries to grab Brooks' throat. Not wanting to be choked or have his trachea crushed, Brooks attempted to push Kimmell's hands away.


Butterfly

Unconscious man rescued by slackliner after dangling off Arapahoe Basin chairlift

Unconscious man
© Facebook
A man who was unconscious while dangling from his neck on a chairlift at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area was saved by a professional slackliner in a daring rescue on Wednesday.


Mickey Wilson, a slackliner, posted photos to social media showing the harrowing rescue after he climbed a lift tower, went across the lift cable and cut down the man with a knife.

"Today I saved someone's life. I think some strange forces were at work," Wilson wrote on Facebook.

Wilson was skiing at friends when a member of the crew got his backpack strap stuck in the chairlift as he tried to unload. The lift dragged him back down the hill.

"We were on the chair lift behind so we unloaded and ran down the hill to help him when we realized the worst possible thing had happened," Wilson wrote. "The backpack had wrapped around his neck and he was unconscious, dangling 10 feet above the snow."

Wilson said he and his friends tried to build a human pyramid to get to him but they couldn't.

Panic was becoming terror as we realized we were about to watch our friend die in front of our helpless eyes," Wilson wrote.

Then, Wilson had what he called a "Eureka" moment.

People 2

Contrary to what Western media says, Russia leads the world in women's rights

volgograd
The Motherland Calls in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad
Contrary to popular Western belief, Russia is actually leading the world in women empowerment and does not suffer from homophobia.

When Russia's Elvira Nabiullina was named European central banker of 2016, while reading an article on this story and checking the comments section, I noticed several facetious compliments such as "Russia is finally catching up in the area of gender equality". Talk about inaccurate observations...

There is a persistent tendency in the West - and in particular, the US - to view Russia as being somehow "behind the times" when it comes to basic human rights. This mistaken view is mostly due to two factors: 1) A lack of understanding of Russian history and 2) A lack of understanding of Russian culture. Let's address these factors while examining two specific areas of concern.

Bad Guys

Disturbing video shows cops hold down man as fellow cop smashes in his head

Cops beat man
A disturbing video has sparked an internal investigation within the NYPD after it showed three cops hold down a man with his hands behind his back while one of them pummelled his face.

The video is taken from inside a bus across the street and starts out as the cop begins smashing in the man's face. "Why are you hitting him?" the person filming asks. "He hit him in his face!" she said. "His face is bleeding!"

After the officer punches the man in the face several times, he then proceeds to start slapping him. All the while, it appears that the man is not resisting at all. This is evidenced by the fact that the female officer and the other male officer (who aren't doing the punching) are calmly squatting down by the man.

While the audio of the police and the man is difficult to hear, we can hear one phrase that the man seems to be repeating. "What are you doing?" begs the man as two cops hold him down while the other digs his face into the asphalt.

Ambulance

Media reports refugee facility on fire in Germany, dozens treated for smoke inhalation

Firefighters
© Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters / Reuters
A building housing refugees in western Germany has caught fire, with over a hundred firefighters and police called in to battle the blaze, local media reports.

The fire erupted at a Staumuhle refugee compound located in North Rhine-Westphalia, Neue Westfalische reports. Some 110 firefighters and around 90 rescue workers from several departments have been called in to tackle the blaze.

A picture posted on the website of the news outlet showed a one-storey house with huge plumes of smoke coming out of it.

More than 50 people have been treated for smoke inhalation, the outlet adds citing officials.

Snakes in Suits

Jury orders DuPont to pay $10.5 million in cancer lawsuit over poisoned Ohio River Valley water

factory
© Mark Ralston / AFP
A jury in Ohio has ordered that chemical giant DuPont pay $10.5 million in damages after finding that the company had poisoned Ohio River Valley water with a known carcinogen since the 60's.

Three thousand similar lawsuits are pending against the multinational.

The federal jury announced Wednesday that $10.5 million in damages be awarded to Keith Vigneron after finding the conglomerate had for years acted with malice by contaminating the water supply and not informing residents. The company must also pay attorney fees.

"It's important to punish, to end this corrupt corporate mentality," the plaintiff's attorney Gary Douglas urged the jury in District Court in Columbus before their decision, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Without punitive action, DuPont and other companies will continue to "tread on us," he said. Douglas had argued that Vigneron's testicular cancer, which was diagnosed in 1997, was caused by drinking water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid, or C8, an ingredient used in manufacturing Teflon.