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Sputnik interviews Syria's displaced residents, who thank Russia for their military and humanitarian support

syria
© Sputnik/ Michael Alaeddin
The attempts by some Western media to accuse Russia of bombing the homes of civilians in Syria have failed every time because of the lack of actual evidence and the absurdity of the fabricated reports.

Sputnik went to a center in the refugee camp in the city of Latakia, which is engaged in the dissemination of domestic IDPs to different camps. In the center, residents of Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa all await to be settled. One of the refugees named Abu Ahmed, who fled from the city of Erich in Idlib, told Sputnik that his house was destroyed by the terrorists two years ago. These were the same terrorists who killed Russian pilots who were carrying humanitarian aid on board the Mi-8 helicopter.

"We do not accept the criminal actions of the armed groups that committed crimes against the pilots who were on a humanitarian mission," Ahmed told Sputnik.

"These pilots delivered food to the residents in besieged areas and the terrorists shot down the helicopter and humiliated the bodies of these pilots. Let me ask you a question: which century to do you live in," Abu Ahmed said.


Hearts

Italian quake aftermath: 'Migrants who have nothing help Europeans in need'

Italy earthquake
© REUTERS/ Emiliano Grillotti
Refugees in Italy's southern region of Calabria are donating money to help survivors of the devastating earthquake that hit the country earlier this week. Sputnik discussed the refugees' involvement in rescue operations with Giovanni Maiolo - local coordinator of Protection System for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Italy.

"In our project we decided to help [the victims of the earthquake] in a symbolic way. The day of the earthquake they saw on television houses destroyed, towns destroyed and a lot of them thought about their own countries, their houses destroyed by bombs and their family members killed. So they decided to do something, to collect money and send it to the people in need," Giovanni Maiolo said.

People 2

Married elderly couple forced to live apart weep in heartbreaking photo

Couple
Anita and Wolf Gottschalk have been inseparable throughout their 62 years of marriage — but now, the elderly couple has been apart for eight months, forced to say a heartbreaking goodbye over and over again.

Their granddaughter, Ashley Bartyik, says a backlog in the Canadian health care system has made it impossible to move Wolf, 83, out of his transitional nursing home and into the care facility where Anita, 81, is living.

In the meantime, Bartyik drives Anita the 30 minutes from her Surrey, British Columbia, care complex to Wolf's every other day so she can see her ailing husband. The visits always end in tears for the couple, Bartyik said.

She posted a photo on Tuesday of Anita and Wolf weeping as they said goodbye — and explained that the situation had become even more desperate.

Pistol

NYPD cops fire 16 shots chasing after 15 y.o. boy with a BB gun

Keston Charles running
Keston Charles on the run from police.
Video footage has once again proven police frequently either assess a potential threat situation incorrectly or simply craft fictitious narratives to justify a wholly unnecessary use of force. Keston Charles miraculously survived being fired upon 16 times during a foot pursuit by the NYPD, who claimed the Brooklyn teen had drawn a weapon — but surveillance footage obtained exclusively by the New York Daily News proves the cops' story was all but an outright lie.

On December 9, 2013, 15-year-old Charles had been armed only with a BB gun — which has drawn comparisons to the Cleveland police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 — as he fled Officer Jonathan Rivera on foot.

Police had previously claimed Charles repeatedly took aim at Rivera with the BB gun, which the officer believed to be a real firearm — so Rivera, they said, had been justified in firing upon the teen 16 times.

Bomb

Birmingham, UK: Bomb disposal team dispatched in response to arrest of 5 men on anti-terrorism charges

West Midlands police
© Darren Staples / Reuters
An Army Bomb Disposal Team were dispatched to the English Midlands city of Birmingham after police arrested five men on anti-terrorism charges.

The West Midlands Police called in the bomb squad as a "precautionary measure" on Friday following an "intelligence-led"operation which led to the the arrest of the men in the Stoke area of Staffordshire and in Birmingham.

The men, all aged between 18 and 32 years old, are being held in the West Midlands on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, according to a statement from West Midlands Police.

Fire

Explosion at LA oil refinery; public encouraged to stay indoors

Tesoro oil refinery
© Mike Blake / ReutersThe Tesoro oil refinery is viewed from the air in Carson, California.
An explosion at an oil refinery in Los Angeles sent a cloud of chemicals, including sulfur, into the air. No injuries were reported, but members of the public were advised to stay indoors as a precaution.

The blast took place on Friday afternoon when a sulfur tank exploded at the Tesoro Refinery in the suburb of Carson.

Inspector Gustavo Medina of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said that the one-ton lid of the tank "blew off," while adding that the cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Hearts

Utah mom drowns saving her 2 y.o. son in boating accident

Chelsey Russell
© wsmtlaw.comChelsey Russell
A Denver mother has drowned, sacrificing her life to save her toddler after he went overboard from a houseboat. She managed to hold him up long enough to be rescued, but neither she nor the boy were wearing lifejackets.

Chelsey Russell, 33, was sailing on a houseboat on Lake Powell in Utah, when her 2-year-old son fell into the water. She jumped in right after him.

According to police, the houseboat went a "significant distance" before stopping.

Russell's brother jumped into a smaller boat that was being towed, and raced to help his sister and nephew. He managed to pull the boy up on the boat, but by the time Russell was rescued, she was unconscious.

Attention

Parents sue over EPA's "unreasonably delay" pace in lead paint reform

Lead paint
© Mario Anzuoni / Reuters
Parents are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for taking seven years to update its standards on lead paint regulations. The suit argues hundreds of thousands of families are uninformed about possible lead paint exposure in their homes.

The "unreasonably delay" lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The suit, brought by California Communities Against Toxics, the Sierra Club, New Jersey Citizen Action and United Parents Against Lead National among others, seeks the court to require "the Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate a rule updating the dust-lead hazard standards and the definition of lead-based paint under the Toxic Substances Control Act," and to do so "within 90 days and to finalize the rule within six months."

Comment: See also: U.S. housing watchdog says it's time to hold industry accountable for lead poisoning


Wedding Rings

New study shows divorce rates double when people start watching porn

wedding rings computer
© Mischenko83/shutterstockA new study titled "Til Porn Do Us Part" suggests that adding pornography to a marriage doubles the likelihood of divorce.
There's an oft-quoted rule on the internet: "If it exists, there is porn of it." Even if that's an exaggeration, there's no question that men and women have been consuming more sexually explicit content since the world went online. Now, a new study looks at how this consumption might affect marriage in the United States. The study, a working paper presented this week at the 2016 American Sociological Association's annual meeting, suggests that men and women who begin to consume pornography partway through their marriages are more likely to get a divorce than their non - porn-consuming peers.

The study has not been peer reviewed, but it raises "no major methodological flags" and does a good job of considering alternative explanations for the findings, says pornography expert Ana Bridges, a psychologist at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, who was not involved in the work.

Previous studies on porn and marriage have suggested that consuming sexually explicit material isn't good for marital health. But many of these studies have been based on cross-sectional data that give only a snapshot of porn use and marital happiness. Now, researchers have been able to analyze how pornography impacts marriage over multiple years.

The new paper uses data from the 2006 - 2014 General Social Survey, a regular poll that asks thousands of Americans for their opinions on everything from national spending priorities to morality. Because the same people are polled several years in a row, researchers can track how attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles change over time. To measure pornography use, the survey asked respondents—who also reported their relationship status—whether they had watched an X-rated movie in the past year. "There's no perfect pornography question, but this one comes closest to the kind of question you ask that carries over time," says study author and sociologist Samuel Perry of the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman. Out of 5698 respondents, 1681 said they had watched an X-rated movie and 373 reported viewing one for the first time during the survey period.

Analyzing the data, Perry and his OU colleague Cyrus Schleifer found that people who started watching porn were more likely to split with their partners during the course of the survey. For men, the chance of divorce went from 5% to 10%. For women, that number jumped from 6% to 18%.

Comment:


Video

Barbaric: Islamic State video appears to show children, including 1 Briton, executing Kurdish captives

daesh isis isil flag
© Ali Hashi/reuters
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) has released a propaganda video that appears to show five children, one of whom is thought to be British, shooting Kurdish prisoners in the back of the head.

The video released on Friday night shows five boys, all aged around 12 to 13, wearing military clothing while standing in a row behind five men who are kneeling in orange jumpsuits.

The child in the middle of the line-up first addresses the camera in Arabic and reportedly says "no one can save the Kurds" including "America, France, Britain and Germany".

The boys then shout Allahu Akbar (God is Great) in unison before drawing pistols and aiming them at the back of the hostages' heads. A caption appearing under each of the boys faces appears to show their country of origin.