A 64-year old California music teacher has been charged with child abuse after pummeling his 14-year-old student in full view of stunned classmates, who filmed the incident. But multiple students have come to his defense.

Educator Marston Riley has posted $50,000 bail, to secure release from Los Angeles County Jail, while his victim has been discharged from hospital with "moderate" injuries.

A video of the incident, posted on YouTube, shows the argument at Maywood Academy High School breaking out after Riley chastises the freshman student for failing to wear the proper uniform to class, and demands he leave.

Instead of complying, the student challenges Riley. Insisting that the teacher look at him, the student, who, like Riley, appears to be a person of color, calls him "my n***a" and "b***h," as he accuses him of being a liar, and humiliates him in front of tut-tutting students holding their instruments.

The New York Times article "Helping Pediatricians Care for Transgender Children" pitches the American Academy of Pediatrics policy paper on comprehensive care for transgender adolescents ^[1,2]. This care includes the most radical and risky of hormone manipulations and surgeries. There is a concept defined called "gender identity" which has no physical presence and apparently can only be made known to the person in which it resides. Comprehensive gender affirmative therapy is a high risk, experimental therapy based on low quality evidence and represents a treatment for a condition which cannot be diagnosed by any doctor.

Consider, if you were told your child had cancer would you expect to see that a tissue sample had been collected and analyzed to prove the diagnosis? If you were told that your child has diabetes would you expect to see blood sugar results that confirm the diagnosis?

In the first example, toxic chemotherapeutics and radiation may be administered and risky surgeries may be performed to treat the cancer. In the second example, a child's blood sugar levels must be monitored very frequently and insulin carefully administered to maintain the delicate balance of blood glucose. Too much insulin may cause severe low glucose levels leading to hospitalization and even death. Too little insulin may lead to placement in an intensive care unit to treat ketoacidosis. The misdiagnosis of either cancer or diabetes will lead to considerable harm to the child because of unnecessary treatments.

Now change the scenario: your pediatrician tells you that your 11-year-old daughter is "gender diverse" ^[3]. That your child has a "gender identity" that is a boy. That if treatment is not begun right away there is a good chance that "he" will commit suicide and you will never hold "him" in your arms again.

"I see," you reply gravely, "and what does the treatment entail?"

"Well puberty must be blocked, it is important that 'he' never has a first period. Testosterone must be administered to help with beard growth, changing of the voice and muscle formation. Later, surgery can be done to remove unneeded breast tissue. Eventually, of course, when 'he' sees fit, he can have 'his' ovaries and uterus removed. Through complicated surgeries the flesh of 'his' forearm, including skin and muscle, can be stripped to make a penis".

"Gosh, that all seems rather drastic. This is the first time I'm hearing this about my daughter. This gender diverse or gender identity condition, can you show me the lab work that verifies this? I am very concerned about the side effects of these hormones and complications of surgery."

"Oh no," the pediatrician replies, "there is no blood test for this, it's a 'brain thing'," he says with a ring of condescension.

Financial stress visits renters more than homeowners.

That's the main takeaway from a new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Rental costs are rising much faster than renters' salaries. Between 1960 and 2016, the median income for a renter grew by just 5 percent. During the same period, the median rent ballooned by more than 60 percent, according to The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. (Both figures account for inflation.)

To be sure, buying a house has also become harder for many Americans - to do so now costs four times the median household income. The homeownership rate fell to 63 percent in 2016 - the lowest rate in half a century.

Afghan officials say at least 13 members of Afghanistan's security forces have been killed in a battle in Ghazni Province about 150 kilometers southwest of Kabul.

Mohammad Arif Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni's provincial governor, told RFE/RL that the battle began early on November 5 when Taliban militants attacked a checkpoint in the Khogyani district near the provincial capital.

Noori said six Afghan police and seven soldiers in the Afghan National Army were killed in the fighting. He said at least four other police officers were wounded.

The Democratic Party has firmly denied attempting to hack Georgia's voter registration system after the state's secretary, who is running for governor, leveled the meddling charges against them just days before the midterms.

The Republican Secretary of State of Georgia accused his midterm rivals of attempting to hack the state's voter registration system just two days before the crucial election. While providing no details of the incident, besides that the alleged attempt failed, Brian Kemp's office did say that the federal authorities are investigating the claims.

Ahead of the November 6 vote, in which Kemp will face off against Democrat Stacey Abrams, the system "remains secure" and should allow the vote to proceed as planned as "no personal data was breached."

MP Andrew Griffiths, who sent 2,000 sexually explicit messages to women, leading to his resignation, has said that he was having a manic episode and that his condition is linked to being sexually abused as a boy.

The disgraced MP for Burton told the Sunday Times that he had considered suicide after the messages were exposed and that the episode lead to him spending 31 days in a psychiatric hospital.

The MP, 48, repeatedly attempted to 'sext' a 28-year-old bar worker and her friend. He was exposed in July after the Sunday Mirror published extracts from the over 2,000 messages - many of which were of violent and graphic nature. In some of the messages Griffiths referred to himself as "daddy," while others were boasts of his connections to celebrities and the Royal Family.

Addressing the episode, Griffiths told the newspaper: "I don't for one second try to excuse what I did.

"The texts were horrible and I apologize hugely for them, and to everyone I have hurt. I am ashamed and embarrassed.

Eight people were killed, and 16 others suffered injuries in a series of explosions in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, local media reported on Monday, citing a source in local security forces.

According to the Al-Arabiya broadcaster, the attacks were carried out late on Sunday.

One of the explosions took place in the northern part of the city, in the vicinity of the Aden square, while three others hit the eastern area of Baghdad, and another one hit the south of the city.

Last year, a blast of a mine-studded car in the southwest of Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killed 55 people. The Daesh* terrorist group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.

A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients.

Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical.

"It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew.

"It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone.

Pakistan's government says Twitter has suspended the account of a radical Pakistani cleric for posting inflammatory statements against the Supreme Court, prime minister, and military after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said it requested that Twitter suspend the account of cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi after his Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party blocked roads for three days last week and threatened Supreme Court judges who acquitted Asia Bibi on October 31.

PTA officials said they'd complained that Rizvi incited "hate and violence" by urging the cooks and servants of the Supreme Court judges to kill them.

There was no immediate comment from U.S.-based Twitter.

Rizvi has said that "there will be a war" if the Pakistani authorities allow Bibi out of the country.

Dozens of people, most of them children, have been kidnapped from a school in the city of Bamenda in Cameroon's northwestern Anglophone region, which is struggling with a separatist insurgency.

Armed men kidnapped 78 students from a Presbyterian school in the Nkwen village, Northwest Region Governor Deben Tchoffo said.

A video uploaded to social media showed the kidnapped children and the alleged kidnappers, calling themselves "Amba boys" in reference to the breakaway Ambazonia state that the separatists have been trying to create. The footage could not be immediately verified, but parents have reportedly been reacting to images of their children on social media, according to AP.