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Magnet

'Mysterious magnetism': Metal sticks to stomach of Syrian boy in bizarre trick (VIDEO)

Magnetic boy
© Ruptly
Every superhero has a moment when their special powers becomes clear. For web-slinging Spider-Man, it was after a radioactive arachnid bite. In Zulfikar Ibrahim's case, he found out his belly doubled as a magnet during dinner.

Hailing from Syria's port city of Latakia, the young boy has become something of a mini-celebrity for his seemingly strange ability to stick metal objects to his stomach. His grandparents are hoping his apparent condition can be studied abroad to get to the bottom of his mysterious "magnetism."

"We were concerned about this phenomenon. Speaking frankly, I don't want it to affect him," said Zulfikar Ibrahim's grandfather. "Since Russia is specialized in this subject, we want this phenomenon - or this biological energy - to be cultivated and studied in Russia."

In 2014, Russian schoolboy Nikolai Kryaglyachenko made headlines when he claimed an electrical accident left him with powers of human magnetism. Hence, the belief that Russian specialists may have some insight into Ibrahim's new found skills.

Oscar

Sick! Texas mother charged with faking son's illness, boy had numerous pointless hospital visits and surgeries

faking illness
© CBS DFW
Christopher's mother is charged with injury to a child for allegedly faking his illness, resulting in 13 major surgeries.
An 8-year-old Dallas boy may have endured more than 300 unnecessary doctor visits, gone through more than a dozen pointless surgeries and suffered life-threatening treatment complications after police and child protective officials say his mother faked multiple illnesses beginning when he was a newborn.

Kaylene Bowen-Wright is charged with injury to a child and was jailed on $150,000 bond, reported CBS DFW. The child and his two siblings were removed from the home by child welfare officials last month.

An investigation by Child Protective Services (CPS) found Bowen-Wright took her son, Christopher, to hospitals in Dallas and Houston with a variety of complaints, resulting in 323 medical appointments and 13 "major" surgeries, CBS DFW reports. He's been on a feeding tube, confined to a wheelchair, developed a blood infection that landed him in the ICU, and has spent time in hospice care, Dr. Suzanne Dakil wrote in an affidavit provided to the CPS investigator.

The agency's report indicated it was likely a case of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, where a caregiver fakes or creates a child's symptoms to receive attention, sympathy or other benefits. A CPS investigation also found Bowen-Wright cut her son's hair and posted a picture of him in a Make-A-Wish shirt claiming he had cancer in an effort to raise money.

Comment: Criminal behavior can take many forms but the following seems to underlie most: "...we can assume that the motives are to gain attention to have drama in one's life, excitement" - at the expense of others.


Arrow Up

3yo girl abandoned in Iraqi jail for 'ISIS widows' brought back to family in Russia

Child reunited
One more child whose parents fled Russia to join Islamic State in the Middle East and died there has been brought back to her homeland. However, hundreds more minors are believed to be stranded in war-torn Iraq and Syria.

Three-year-old Sofia Zaynukova from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan had been discovered in an Iraqi prison where wives and widows of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters are held. The girl, whose parents traveled to the region to join the terrorist group years before, was looked after by a woman, who picked her up after a deadly airstrike in Mosul. The woman said the girl's mother was buried under the rubble.

Zaynukova's father left Dagestan in 2015, having deceived his own parents by saying he was traveling to a nearby city to get medical treatment accompanied by the girl and her mother. He ended up as an IS fighter in Iraq, just as his brother did. That man's daughters, Sofia's cousins, Khadija, 5, and Fatima, 3 were reunited with their grandparents earlier this year.

"I lost my two sons, but I was given my granddaughters back," their grandfather says. Daughters of his elder son were brought back home from a Baghdad orphanage after having been spotted in an RT video about children whose parents were killed fighting for IS. The family then started looking for the third missing child, Sofia. See video here.

Comment:


Sheriff

'We are 911!': Tyrant cops threaten to kick innocent family out of their own house

Debra A. Strobele Christopher Fields
When a man purchased an abandoned house at a city auction for tax-delinquent properties one year ago, he had no idea that the same people who were supposed to protect him from trespassers, would be the ones to illegally enter his property and threaten him.

Mohammad Ismail told Buffalo News that he knew the decrepit house was going to need a lot of work when he purchased it for $14,000-as it had not been lived in for years-but he had big plans to renovate it into a home for his wife and four children.

Ismail said that after his purchase of the home was finalized, and he obtained a building permit, he was working on the house on April 18 when he was approached by two Buffalo police officers. Officers Christopher Fields and Debra A. Strobele were both in uniform when they arrived in a patrol car.

Fields claimed he was the owner of the house, and he threatened that he would arrest Ismail and take him to jail if he did not leave. Ismail complied and said he left the house and went to City Hall to confirm that he owned the home.

The report from Buffalo News confirmed that Ismail is the owner, and noted that records from the city's Division of Housing and Inspection show that there were "numerous code violations at the property stretching back to 2013, the year Fields took ownership of the house."

Take 2

Sexual misconduct allegations against public figures voted top news story of 2017 in AP poll

sexual assaulters
© AP Photo
The wave of sexual misconduct allegations that toppled Hollywood power brokers, politicians, media icons and many others was the top news story of 2017, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.

The No. 2 story was Donald Trump's tumultuous first year as president. A year ago, Trump's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election was a near-unanimous pick for the top news story of 2016.

The first AP top-stories poll was conducted in 1936, when editors chose the abdication of Britain's King Edward VIII as the top story.

Cow

Wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson bragged on Facebook that 'Russiagate' wouldn't exist without her husband

Glenn Simpson Mary Jacoby
The wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, is proud of her husband's work that led to mass Trump-Russia hysteria. Jacoby is so proud that she felt the need to boast on Facebook about how 'Russiagate,' would not exist if it weren't for her husband.

Tablet Magazine reports:
A Tablet investigation using public sources to trace the evolution of the now-famous dossier suggests that central elements of the Russiagate scandal emerged not from the British ex-spy Christopher Steele's top-secret "sources" in the Russian government-which are unlikely to exist separate from Russian government control-but from a series of stories that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby co-wrote for The Wall Street Journal well before Fusion GPS existed, and Donald Trump was simply another loud-mouthed Manhattan real estate millionaire. Understanding the origins of the "Steele dossier" is especially important because of what it tells us about the nature and the workings of what its supporters would hopefully describe as an ongoing campaign to remove the elected president of the United States. [...]

In a Facebook post from June 24, 2017, that Tablet has seen in screenshots, Jacoby claimed that her husband deserves the lion's share of credit for Russiagate. (She has not replied to repeated requests for comment.) "It's come to my attention that some people still don't realize what Glenn's role was in exposing Putin's control of Donald Trump," Jacoby wrote. "Let's be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn." This assertion is hardly a simple assertion of family pride; it goes directly to the nature of what became known as the "Steele dossier," on which the Russiagate narrative is founded.

Comment: Report: Russia 'dossier' was based on 10-Year-Old Wall Street Journal articles - not Russian sources


Cross

"The separation of Church and State is no longer observed": Church plays same 'inglorious' role as in Nazi Germany - AfD leader

Church
© Arno Burgi / Global Look Press
Vast parts of the Christian Church in Germany are getting more involved in politics, taking on a role it had under the Third Reich, a top AfD politician has told clerics in response to their criticism of the right-wing party.

"We now know that the official Churches, whether Evangelical [Protestant] or Catholic, are politicized through and through," Alice Weidel, Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) parliamentary group leader, told Focus magazine on Thursday.

"The separation of Church and State is no longer observed." Apart from a "few exceptions," the Church now has "the same inglorious role [it] played in the Third Reich," she said.

Weidel's harsh words came in response to comments by the Protestant Bishop Markus Droge, who questioned whether one "could credibly engage as a Christian in the AfD."

Pistol

Police launch manhunt in Fresno California after series of random shootings on vehicles

Fresno CA shooter targets drivers
© Reuters
A bullet hole in a victim's vehicle window is shown in this photo in Fresno County, California, U.S., provided December 21, 2017.
Police in California's Central Valley have launched a manhunt for at least one suspect after a series of 10 random shootings on vehicles left one woman wounded this holiday season, officials said on Thursday.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims has warned the shooting attacks, which have occurred in her jurisdiction and neighboring Madera County, could turn deadly.

"If this keeps going, it's going to be a matter of time before we have a murder investigation," Mims said at a news conference. "That's what we're trying to avoid."

Witnesses described the suspect's vehicle as a dark colored pick-up truck with oversized tires, Mims said. The motive for the shootings is unknown, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Palette

Not quite the "last da Vinci": Two more paintings attributed to Leonardo surface since record-breaking sale of Salvator Mundi

Leonardo Da Vinci Salvator Mundi
© TOLGA AKMEN/AFP
At $450 million, Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi is the most expensive painting sold at auction.
Before Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold at auction for a record-shattering $450.3 million, it was marketed around the world as "the last Da Vinci" in private hands.

It turns out there is another-even two-out there. And at least one dealer thinks they could be worth as much as $200 million each.

Both are smaller-scale, devotional paintings depicting the same image: the Virgin Mary with the Christ child in her lap. The baby is holding a cross-shaped stick used to wind yarn, which has inspired the shared name, The Madonna of the Yarnwinder.

"They are both in private hands," said Martin Kemp, a da Vinci scholar and emeritus research professor of art history at Oxford University in the U.K. "I know both owners." (Christie's says they do not comment on works that are not consigned and stand behind their presentation of Salvator Mundi.)

Comment: See also: Holy Grail of art rediscoveries: Da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi' portrait expected to fetch up to $100M at auction


Laptop

Chicago police say Facebook 'secret groups' used to sell guns, drugs

facebook website
© Facebook
Police in Chicago said on Thursday they have arrested 50 people suspected of using "secret groups" on Facebook to deal in guns and drugs, and have teamed up with the world's largest social media network to crack down on criminal trafficking online.

Announcing the arrests at a news conference, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson initially criticized Facebook as being unhelpful during a 10-month investigation by his department.

"Quite frankly, they haven't been very friendly to law enforcement to prevent these things," he told reporters.

However, police later said the department and the California-based company agreed to work collaboratively "to target any illegal activity on the platform."