Russian military police will accompany the buses with refugees leaving the Rukban tent camp in the US-controlled zone in Syria, on their way to the areas administered by Damascus. The first buses departed for the camp on Friday.

Security for the refugees leaving the camp, mainly women and children, is being provided jointly by the Syrian armed forces and the Russian military, Sergey Solomatin, head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria, said on Friday.

YouTube has disabled comments under "tens of millions of videos" with children doing innocuous things such as yoga, after an investigation revealed the presence of preying pedophiles and sparked a mass exodus of advertisers.

In a blog post on Thursday, the video-sharing site said it had started closing down comment sections on videos featuring minors "that could be subject to predatory behavior." Such videos number in the "tens of millions," YouTube said, promising to expand the purge "over the next few months."

The Google-owned company said that only "a small number of creators will be able to keep the comments enabled on these types of videos."

The accounts that would be allowed to stay open to user feedback, will have to step up their moderating game and will be required "to demonstrate a low risk of predatory behavior." YouTube said that it would directly engage with creators of these high-risk videos.

You probably already know - or think you know-what happened on the night of September 25, 2017 between Aziz Ansari and an anonymous woman calling herself "Grace." These are the accepted facts: she went on a date with Ansari, they went back to his house, and then had some sexual contact that left Grace feeling deeply uncomfortable. No crime was alleged, since Ansari did not force himself on Grace in any way, but this was clearly a nasty encounter for her. The next day, she texted Ansari telling him as much and he apologized for having "misread things." Several months later, she published her account on the website babe.

For a few weeks following the publication of Grace's story, the internet was awash with claims and counter-claims about the rights and wrongs of what had taken place. Every media outlet offered up its judgment on Ansari. To some commentators, he was the victim of a witch hunt, persecuted by an internet mob with no respect for due process. On the other side, many feminists argued that his behavior exemplified the aggressive, entitled, chauvinistic attitude that too many men show towards women. Others suggested that the reaction against Ansari was disproportionate - yes he had behaved badly, but that badly? Everyone had an opinion, not only on what he had done, but on what the incident revealed about sexual politics in the #MeToo era.

You may remember that last year some nut was arrested for mailing bombs to prominent Democrats, media outlets, and opponents of Donald Trump. Less than a week after the bombs went out, a suspect was arrested. Almost immediately, video turned up of him at a Trump rally, wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and chanting for the camera. He was soon tried, convicted, and jailed. End of story.

But it wasn't the end of the story. The investigation into the bomb incidents focused attention on an almost unknown federal surveillance program-one that poses a direct threat to the privacy and constitutional rights of every American. It's called the "Mail Cover Program" and it's run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Yes, even the Post Office is spying on us.

The Mail Cover Program allows postal employees to photograph and send to federal law enforcement organizations (FBI, DHS, Secret Service, etc.) the front and back of every piece of mail the Post Office processes. It also retains the information digitally and provides it to any government agency that wants it-without a warrant.

A man being sought for the assault of a conservative activist on the University of California, Berkeley campus last month has been arrested.

A statement from UC Berkeley Public Affairs said a warrant was issued for suspect Zachary Greenberg and UC police arrested him Friday, booking him into jail at 1 p.m.

Greenberg was identified as one of two men who confronted a conservative activist who had set up a table in Sproul Plaza. Hayden Williams, volunteer with conservative group Turning Points USA was displaying signs that read, "Hate Crimes Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims" - a reference to the Jussie Smollett case - and another saying "This is MAGA Country."

Bill de Blasio's wife Chirlane McCray cannot explain where $850million given to the mental health program she champions has gone, according to reports.

In the three years it has been running, organizers at ThriveNYC have largely failed to keep records of the initiative's achievements - and data that has been collected shows it lagging well behind targets.

Despite that, the program has been granted an even bigger budget going forward and is now on track to spend $1billion over five years.

The data comes from a Politico report that shows those running the scheme have largely failed to measure its impact or keep track of spending.

Thrive said it has developed a list of 417 metrics to measure how effective the program is moving forward, but asked to assess its impact so far, Politico said the data was piecemeal and showed a largely failing picture.

RT provided extensive coverage of the Skripal poisonings by exploring a number of theories, is critical of NATO, and writes stories about Western political dysfunction, a report from King's College London (KCL) has found.

The Policy Institute (TPI) at KCL published a range of hard-hitting findings under the title 'Weaponising news: RT, Sputnik and targeted disinformation.'

It's a piece of work which can stand proudly alongside the countless other reports which have reached the same conclusions using almost the same language.

Female researchers, authors and firefighters in France could soon be known as chercheuses, autrices and sapeuses-pompières after the conservative Académie Française abandoned years of opposition to the feminisation of job titles.

The Immortals, as the 36 guardians of the French language are known, said they saw "no obstacle in principle" to the change, and were happy to envisage "all developments in the language aimed at recognising the place women have in society today".

Most job titles in French are masculine by default, meaning, for example, that in French la presidente refers not to the female leader of a country, but to the female partner of a head of state. The few exceptions to this rule are in mainly gender-stereotypical jobs, such as infirmière (nurse) or nourrice (childminder).

SpaceX's famous Starman dummy onboard the inaugural Falcon Heavy launch in 2018 is about to have some competition - from a new dummy, named Ripley, who will fly on the first test mission of the company's Crew Dragon capsule.
Ripley is not onboard to be dead weight: It is packed with a range of sensors that SpaceX engineers will use to monitor the journey to and from the International Space Station.

"We call it a smartie, and her [sic] name is Ripley," SpaceX vice president of Build and Flight Reliability Hans Koenigsmann said of the dummy during a news conference Thursday (Feb. 28) previewing the mission's launch, which is scheduled for early in the morning of March 2. Liftoff is set for 2:49 a.m. EST (0749 GMT).

The name is a nod to Ellen Ripley, the main character of the 1979 movie Alien and some of its sequels. The name follows a SpaceX trend of naming things after science fiction icons. It's first spacesuit-clad figure (launched in a Tesla Roadster by a Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018) was called Starman in honor of David Bowie's sci-fi themed music. The Falcon rockets themselves are named after the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars.

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk unveiled the first glimpse of the Ripley dummy on Friday (March 1) via Twitter.

"Ripley," Musk wrote in a simple note.

Ghoulish allegations of harvesting organs from deceased children in Texas without consent of families has sparked a criminal investigation and lawsuit against a pair of former Calgary medical examiners.

Dr. Sam Andrews and Dr. Evan Matshes, who both quit the Calgary medical examiner's office in March 2011, were named last week in a $1-million lawsuit by a former employee of Lubbock County's coroner's office, who accused the duo, and their California-based pathology company NAAG Pathology Labs, of firing her after she raised concerns about inappropriately harvesting organs and tissue from children without informing their families.

According to the lawsuit, filed last Wednesday in the state's 72nd District Court, former Lubbock medical examiner's office worker Tita Senee Graves alleges Matshes removed organs and tissue from children during autopsies and sent them to National Autopsy Assay Group (NAAG) in San Diego. She also accused Matshes of performing the procedures without a licence to practise medicine in Texas, as well as telling staff that he needed to collect more tissue from children than in the past for "research."

NAAG Pathology Labs has denied any wrongdoing.

At a news conference last week, Graves told local media she was horrified at the new direction taken by the former Calgary pathologists, who allegedly told staff when they took over the office late last year that they needed to collect organ and tissue samples from children who died naturally to create a control group for research into fatal abuse cases.

"On these children, it didn't matter what the cause of death was. They took the brains, the spinal cords, the spinal columns from the neck, sometimes parts of ribs, sometimes parts of legs, the heart, the lungs, the eyeballs - all shipped to San Diego," she told reporters.

"When you're doing it on children that you don't need to have the tissues they're taking to determine the cause of death, it's not right in any sense of the word."

Attorney Kevin Glasheen, who's representing Graves, said in addition to the financial award, the lawsuit is also calling on the county to let her return to work.

"Ms. Graves is a hero for exposing these California body snatchers who have taken over the Lubbock County Medical Examiner's Office," he said in a news release.

"Of course, they immediately fired her for doing so - and now we are going to make them pay."
Lt. Bryan Witt with the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed to Postmedia that Texas Rangers, who investigate major crimes in the state, are investigating Lubbock's medical examiner's office, but declined to discuss details.

"I would not be able to discuss any of the facts surrounding the case due to it being an ongoing investigation but I can confirm that the Texas Rangers are investigating allegations made against the Lubbock Medical Examiner's Office at the request of the Lubbock County District Attorney's Office," Witt wrote in an email Monday.

"Once the Rangers complete the investigation, all investigative findings will be turned over to the Lubbock County District Attorney's Office."

Local media report the Texas Medical Board is also investigating the allegations.

A statement released by NAAG on Tuesday expressed confidence in Andrews, who was named chief medical examiner for the county last year, while denying the allegations, none of which has been proven.

"Both Dr. Andrews and NAAG Pathology Labs strive to carry out all of their services according to the highest of national and international standards," the statement read.

"We strongly deny that either NAAG Pathology Labs or Dr. Andrews have acted in any manner that is contrary to the best interest of the public. NAAG Pathology Labs stands behind the work of Dr. Andrews, and we will vigorously defend against every allegation that has been made. We are confident that we will be exonerated of all claims of wrongdoing."

When reached at their corporate offices in San Diego on Tuesday, the company, which also purports to have a Canadian office just west of Calgary, did not make anyone immediately available to comment.

Matshes remains embroiled in a $30-million lawsuit, filed in 2014, against both the Alberta government and former Alberta chief medical examiner Dr. Anny Sauvageau, charging both with conspiring to ruin his career by spreading false information about him.

Shortly after his departure, Matshes' work during his 13 months serving in Calgary's medical examiner's office had been called into question, prompting an investigation by Alberta Justice into 14 of his cases, which found his conclusions "unreasonable" in 13 of them. However, a Court of Queen's Bench judge would later quash the panel's findings after determining the process used was unfair and the investigators were given incomplete information.

According to an online biography, Matshes, a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan, is "actively involved in Pediatric Forensic Pathology research, teaching and publishing. He developed a new conceptual model and approach to inflicted head trauma in infants."

News of the chilling allegations have been particularly devastating for Odessa, Texas resident Alyssa Hammontree, who learned this week that her son, Zaydrian - whose death last August is alleged to be a case of fatal child abuse that resulted in a capital murder charge for Marqalo Divonte Flores - may have been one of two children whose cases of inappropriate removal of organs were outlined in the lawsuit.
Hammontree told Postmedia on Tuesday that after her two-year-old son's death, she signed an organ donor card allowing his heart, liver and kidneys to be donated. But she explicitly declined to allow any of her only son's remains to be used for research purposes when she was asked to sign forms in the hospital.

"I just wanted him to rest in peace, but to know about this on top of how he died is horrible," said Hammontree, who described Zaydrian as a smart and loving boy who loved water balloon fights and Paw Patrol.

"I was throwing up all over the place when I found out."

She said she has retained a lawyer and is contemplating legal action, while she continues to wait for the results of an autopsy that was performed seven months ago.

Given the ongoing legal battle with Matshes, the province's justice and attorney general's office declined to comment on the latest allegations, nor address whether it is aware of any similar accusations that would have occurred during his time in Calgary.

During his 13 months in Calgary, Matshes conducted 426 death investigations, including 262 autopsies and 164 external exams.

"As Dr. Matshes work and employment practices falls under the scope of the current litigation between Dr. Matshes and the Government of Alberta (this case is before the courts), we cannot comment further," the ministry said in a statement.