Students at Lewis and Clark College's Graduate School of Education can take a course in spring 2019 that will teach them to combat toxic masculinity in the classroom.

The course, which is intended for educators, will encourage participants to "analyze the effects of toxic masculinity and how they play out in our classrooms, communities, and lives," according to the course description. Participants will walk away from the course with "a lesson plan based on an idea or strategy presented during sessions, and will return to their classrooms with strategies to combat toxic masculinity."

Students can receive one semester hour by taking part in the course.

The course will be taught by Chris Kelly and Jayme Causey. Causey is a 2016 graduate of nearby Portland State University and of the Lewis and Clark College Graduate School of Education Oregon Writing Project. He has also presented workshops at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference in both 2017 and 2018.

To the left, a MAGA hat isn't a head cover; it's a badge of evil...

The last few years have seen a dangerous shift in America's cultural climate, especially when it comes to the expression of political beliefs. In the past, Americans could engage in heated debates over the issues while still maintaining a semblance of civility. But now, political discourse has been turned on its head, and it is unlikely that the nation will see a return to normalcy anytime soon.

The days when individuals could communicate their political leanings without fear of reprisal have morphed into an environment in which an article of clothing can invite attacks so vicious that lives can be upended. The story of the Covington High School students who became targets of a rabid left-leaning media mob is only the latest in a series of occurrences that demonstrate what can happen to a person for simply wearing a "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) baseball cap.

Political Expression Has Become Dangerous

Since President Trump began his campaign, progressives in the media have homed in on his supporters, smearing them as ignorant bigots who are working to build an American Third Reich. As a result, those who voted for the president have been subject to harassment and, in some cases, violence.

Last year, a Texas 16-year-old was accosted in a restaurant for wearing a MAGA hat. A 30-year-old man verbally assaulted the young fellow, ripped the hat from his head, and threw his soda into the teenager's face. In 2017, a New York man was denied service at a bar because he sported the infamous red cap.

It is also important to remember the numerous instances in which far-leftist protesters showed up at conservative rallies to physically assault the participants. The left has managed to take an act of political expression and use it as a weapon against those who oppose progressive ideas. To the wearer of the MAGA hat, they are simply expressing support for a political movement. To the progressive left, it is an identifier, a way to pinpoint evil.

How Did This Happen?

Many individuals, both on the left and the right, have contributed to the tense political atmosphere America is experiencing today. But it is evident that the primary culprit is the establishment media, whose members have sown division and resentment through their biased reporting, and the majority of Americans are aware of the role the press has played in pitting one group against the other. A recent study revealed that people believe that the media is more divisive than President Trump, who is constantly maligned for his aggressive rhetoric.

The Fourth Estate has used its various platforms to treat conservatives as if they are both ignorant and evil. Instead of portraying right-leaning Americans as individuals who simply disagree with progressives, they have chosen to launch a malicious campaign. Several outlets have attracted clicks and views by using extremely loaded language to describe President Trump and his supporters; comparisons to dictators like Hitler have become almost commonplace in the reportage of the most popular news outlets.
It is for this reason that many on the far left do not see an article of clothing when confronted with a MAGA hat; they see a symbol of oppression. Some have likened the cap to the swastika or white hood. Many of those on the left who are portraying conservatives as fascists are fully aware that their accusations are inaccurate. Put simply, they are lying.

However, because of the influence of the media, there is a significant number who truly believe they are opposing oppression when they attack people for wearing the wrong headgear. For this reason, they can easily justify implementing a nationwide smear campaign against high school students who committed the sin of wearing a MAGA hat. It is why they have no problem with doxing or even assaulting Americans who support the president.

The only solution to this problem is for reasonable people on both sides to call out those who dehumanize anyone with differing political beliefs. But it is individuals on the far left who are going to extremes to harm conservatives, and this will persist as long as they are allowed to do so without being checked by their own.

The Mexican government said Friday the United States plans to return 20 migrants per day to Mexico as they await an answer to their U.S. asylum claims.

Roberto Velasco, the spokesman for Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said "the Mexican government doesn't agree with this unilateral move," but will accept the migrants under certain conditions.

Velasco said the first 20 migrants would be returned at the San Ysidro crossing, across from Tijuana, "in the next few hours." He said all are Central Americans and all apparently had temporary visas in Mexico.

That suggests they may have been part of last year's migrant caravans, given that many were given such visas.

Early on the morning of January 22nd some 150 Palestinian prisoners at Israel's Ofer Military Prison in Ramallah were injured by a raid carried out by the Metzada unit, a subset of the Israeli military. Of the approximately 150 prisoners reportedly injured, 40 of them suffered head injuries and an additional six were treated for broken bones during a raid which saw the use of dogs, tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets, and sound bombs against prisoners. Three rooms were also destroyed by fire in what the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) is calling the largest attack on Palestinian prisoners in more than a decade by Israeli armed forces. According to another prisoners rights group, Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), 20 prisoners have still not been returned to Ofer, nor been reported under treatment at hospitals, and have been designated by the PPS as missing. Over 1,200 Palestinians are imprisoned in Ofer, including 180 minors also subjected to the attacks.

The raid was reportedly orchestrated by Israel's Security Minister Gilad Erdan as part of a sustained effort to strip away the rights Palestinian prisoners had been slowly accruing over the past decade. Since the raid at Ofer, Nafha prison in the northern Israeli region of Naqab and Gilboa prison in the south have also been raided with Erdan seemingly making good on his promise in recent weeks to reduce the standard of living for Palestinian prisoners to "the minimum required." Erdan has also begun implementing changes, including blocking Palestinian Authority funds, ending separation between prisoners affiliated with Hamas and Fatah, and rationing prisoner's access to water, the consumption of which he has called "crazy" and "another way for them [prisoners] to subvert the state." Whereas these proposed implementations were considered election propaganda by the PPC when Erdan made them on January 2nd, the propaganda seems to have successfully made it's transition into policy.

The US-born Iranian journalist snatched up by the FBI and held for 10 days without charges gave an exclusive interview to RT about how fortunate she feels to make it out alive - and how things could have easily gone differently.

"What I realize is how easy it is for them to make someone disappear. If [my son] was not there, anything could have happened to me and no one would have known where I was. And I'm just wondering how many people that this happens to," PressTV journalist Marzieh Hashemi told RT's Afshin Rattansi in an exclusive interview.

At one point during her detention, she was even placed on suicide watch - a fact she only discovered afterwards, from another prisoner. "It concerned me, because I'm thinking maybe they have something up their sleeves here." She was not allowed to contact anyone for the first 48 hours of her imprisonment.

Police in St. Louis are investigating the shooting death of a 24-year-old officer early Thursday by a fellow cop who "mishandled" a firearm, authorities said.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Commissioner John W. Hayden Jr. said Officer Katlyn Alix was shot in the chest shortly before 1 a.m. as she sat in the living room of a fellow officer's apartment in the city's Carondelet neighborhood.

Hayden said two on-duty male officers went to one of their homes in the midst of their shift. Alix, who was off duty, met the officers there.

He said Alix was shot in the chest by a 29-year-old officer in what he described as an "accidental discharge of a weapon."

An Argentinian porn star and self-professed 'Goddess of Death', who claims to have a personal relationship with the Devil, has renounced her children and set up her own satanic cult.

Sabrina Sabrok, 42, said she created the 'Legion Sabrok' cult to teach others how to cast spells, communicate with the dead and make pacts with the Devil.

"I decided to do this cult so that interested people feel identified, people who really want to change their lives, and to think differently and not in the way that society dictates," the Playboy model explained to Mexican publication Infobae.

The cult's website offers advice on covenants with the Devil, black magic spells and even matchmaking for those seeking a mate who shares their interest in the occult.

U2 frontman and social activist Bono endeared himself to an audience of global business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday when he said that capitalism is "not immoral" as he called on them to join the fight against extreme poverty in Africa and Aids.

"Capitalism is not immoral - it's amoral. It requires our instruction," Bono said on a Davos panel discussing how to fill a multitrillion-dollar financing gap in the achievement of a UN goal to end poverty globally by 2030. "Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other 'ism'. But it is a wild beast that, if not tamed, can chew up a lot of people along the way."

Bono, co-founder of One, a global campaign and advocacy organisation with more than 10 million members seeking to end extreme poverty, said that the negative forces of unfettered capitalism have driven an international move towards populism.

The singer said public-sector spending - as the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, for example, is currently seeking to raise $14 billion to save an estimated 16 million lives - is the most vulnerable as governments in developed states in Europe grapple with domestic problems such as homelessness.

However, he said, "If Africa fails, Europe cannot succeed."

As many as half of Facebook's two billion accounts are fake or duplicates, according to a new report from a former classmate of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has highlighted how the fakes defraud users, advertisers and investors alike.

Rocked by a major privacy scandal last year, Facebook has been trying to create an image of a company with high community standards, striving to curb the illicit behavior of users. But the company may be deliberately understating the amount of fake accounts, a new report says.

The firm's own quarterly investment reports reveal that the its much-vaunted account base, which is supposedly has over 2 billion monthly active users, is packed with fake accounts communicating with just enough randomness to trick the social network's algorithms, according to Zuckerberg's former classmate at Harvard, Aaron Greenspan.

Greenspan claimed that he had originally come up with the idea for Facebook and worked on the future network, before Zuckerberg eventually founded the company. That claim was the basis of the trademark dispute between Facebook and Greenspan's company, Think Computer Corporation, settled in 2009.

An Orange County Sheriff's deputy was hailed as a hero for stopping a crazed knife-wielding suspect in 2013.

But a federal jury now finds the hero used excessive force in subduing the man. And they ruled Orange County must now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution to the man's mother.

Connor Zion's family cherished his talent and his life.

Zion's life was cut short in a controversial encounter with deputies.

Dash cam video captured the sounds of the first round of gunshots. He is seen running around a patrol car and a deputy fires another round.

You see the deputy - Michael Higgins - stomp Zion's head three times.

"The police are not trained to stomp victims into unconsciousness, especially after they've been shot 13 times," says Brian Olney, an attorney for the plaintiff's family.