© Erin Austin/screen captureAlison Ettel
A white woman in San Francisco was been recorded appearing to call the police on a black eight-year-old girl for "illegally" selling bottled water on the sidewalk.
Footage of the incidents has been viewed millions of times across a number of social media platforms, with the woman, Alison Ettel, being nicknamed "permit Patty".
© Getty
The
news last week that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone and email records from a journalist illustrated the
extreme lengths to which the Trump administration will go to crack down on leaks. The news that the seizure was intertwined with a relationship the reporter had been having with someone on her beat illustrated the ethical perils of such a choice.
But another, equally troubling development in the story came on Tuesday night
courtesy of the Washington Post. The newspaper reported that a Customs and Border Protection agent independently confronted the same reporter-Ali Watkins, a
New York Times journalist who previously worked at Politico and BuzzFeed-about her confidential sources a year ago, several months before the FBI had approached her about the leak investigation that would eventually include the seizure of her records and culminate in the arrest of a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer.
Comment: It makes sense that a journalist who had an intimate relationship with someone indicted for leaking confidential data would be investigated and that her records would be seized. As a 'person of interest' in a judicial case, the prosecutors most definitely want to investigate the full extent of Wolfe's leaking. The media may want to portray this as a case of the Trump Admin. cracking down on journalistic freedoms, but more likely this is about finding out exactly what Wolfe leaked to an influential and connected journalist.
Update (June 26): The
NY Times itself (the company which Watkins worked for) has
published a scathing report on Watkins which both points out that she was using Wolfe as her source but that after her relationship with him ended, she had a second relationship with another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The question is, did the
Times encourage her to use her sexuality and feminine wiles to gain inside information?
The fact that the
Times itself published this story, outing one of their own journalists, smells of a PR move intended to get in front of any criticism the
Times might receive. Indeed, in the very article the
Times even noted that Watkins once told friends she "wanted off the beat," but "
her editors were eager for scoops." A cynical mind might suggest that the Times is well aware of journalists using sex as a means to gain insider info, despite that it's "frowned upon" in the journalistic community, and is more than willing to look the other way if it means access they would otherwise be unable to gain.
Censorship is alive and well on America's political left as a restaurant in Lexington, VA faces backlash for telling Trump Administration Press Secretary Sarah Sanders that she was not allowed to dine there.
"This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news," says a banner post on the
Red Hen Restaurant's Yelp page.
"While we don't take a stand one way or the other when it comes to these news events, we do work to remove both positive and negative posts that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer's personal consumer experience with the business."
AFPSun, 24 Jun 2018 19:12 UTC
© AFP/File / ANDREAS SOLARO
As Italy's new populist government cracked down on foreign NGO boats operating in the Mediterranean Saturday the Italian coastguard has followed suit telling boats in Libyan waters to "turn to" Libya when in distress.
According to the Italian media the national coastguard sent a message to rescue boats operating in the Mediterranean advising them that Italy would no longer be their first point of reference."From now on, under the Solas Convention (Safety of life at Sea), captains who are at sea in the area in front of Libya will have to turn to the Tripoli Centre and the Libyan Coast Guard for help."
Diane Abbott, along with over 50 other signatories has sent a public letter to Tommy Robinson supporters.
Dozens of left-wing politicians have sent a strongly worded open letter to Tommy Robinson supporters, labelling the support for Tommy as the 'resurgent racist right'.
The letter states: "The 15,000-strong violent far-right protest to "free Tommy Robinson" on Saturday 9 June has raised major questions for all those who value our diversity. The racist right are using Robinson to reorganise. Nazi salutes and Islamophobia were at the centre of the mobilisation.
"This is the first serious attempt since the collapse of the English Defence League (EDL) to develop a racist street movement and give it a political form. It is supported internationally by notorious figures including from the US and the Dutch Islamophobic right."
Comment: More recent news on the Tommy Robinson saga:
Some background on Mr. Robinson:
RTTue, 26 Jun 2018 17:17 UTC
Justin Gaertner's 'Titan 2' Marine tattoo can be seen on his left elbow
Fact-checker and writer at
New Yorker magazine Talia Lavin has resigned from her position after she falsely accused an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent of having a Nazi tattoo on his arm.
Lavin, who worked for the Condé Nast-published magazine for three years, caused a furore online when she tweeted in a since-deleted post about an inking on the arm of ICE Agent Justin Gaertner.
According to ICE, the New Yorker employee "erroneously implied that a tattoo on one of his arms was an Iron Cross and essentially labeled him a Nazi." The tattoo is actually of "the Titan 2" symbol of Gaertner's platoon in Afghanistan, where he was severely wounded losing both his legs in an IED attack.
According to the national registry, 2,890 people have been murdered so far this year, which translates to roughly 93 victims per day or four per hour.
With just 10 days to Mexico's July 1 presidential elections, a new report shows
violence has reached a new peak with almost 3,000 murders committed last month alone, the National Public Security System said Thursday.
There has been a total of 2,890 murders,
which translates to roughly 93 victims per day or four every hour: the highest homicide rate since 1997.Since January, a total of 13,298 people have been murdered in Mexico: a 21 percent increase on the same period last year.
RTTue, 26 Jun 2018 17:05 UTC
© Mohammad Khursheed / Reuters
A woman said she was left "ashamed" and "humiliated" when a Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill her prescription for medicine to induce a miscarriage because it went against his personal beliefs.
In an emotional Yelp review, Arizona native Nicole Arteaga explained that her doctor had informed her that her baby had stopped developing and she was going to suffer a miscarriage."Each week I went for my ultrasound praying to see progress and hear the sound of little heartbeat. Unfortunately, development isn't happening and my body is slowly getting ready to miscarry," she said.
Arteaga was offered a choice between taking prescribed medication to induce a miscarriage or undergoing a hospital procedure. She chose the latter but when she travelled to her local Walgreens in Peoria, 12 miles (20km) outside Phoenix, to have the prescription filled, the pharmacist refused to supply her with the medication.
RTTue, 26 Jun 2018 16:57 UTC
© Fadi Arouri / ReutersJavier Solana
A former secretary general of NATO, who played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, has been denied a US visa waiver because of a visit he made to Iran in 2013. The denial stems from an Obama-era visa policy.
Javier Solana, who served as NATO secretary general from 1995-1999, was due to speak at an event at the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution, but he learned that he would not be able to enter the country after unsuccessfully applying for an electronic visa waiver.
It appears that Solana, who also served as Spain's foreign minister and the EU's foreign policy chief, was flagged by a system put in place by the Obama administration in 2016, which prevents citizens of 38 countries who had traveled to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen after March 1, 2011, from coming to the United States using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
Comment: American bureaucracy at its finest. The man went to Iran on behalf of Obama and other Western leaders gets denied entry to the US, the very country who we has essentially working for as NATO Secretary General. One can now understand why Albert Maysles once said that "tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance". That's the US Empire in a nutshell!
RTTue, 26 Jun 2018 16:51 UTC
© longbeachfire / Instagram
A firefighter responding to an explosion at a retirement home in Long Beach has been fatally shot by a senior resident of the facility, who also injured two more people in what authorities believe to be a planned ambush.
Just before 4:00 am Monday morning, an explosion rocked the Covenant Manor affordable senior housing facility in Long Beach, California. Responding to the scene, firefighters discovered a raging fire at the 11-story building, with windows blown out and sprinklers activated. After quickly putting out the flames on the second floor, Long Beach Fire Department officers went on to inspect the building after smelling gasoline. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was also called to the scene.
As first responders proceeded with their inspections and evacuation of some 80 residents, shots were fired from within the building. Two firefighters and a civilian were shot in what appears to be an ambush by a resident of the housing facility.
Comment: It makes sense that a journalist who had an intimate relationship with someone indicted for leaking confidential data would be investigated and that her records would be seized. As a 'person of interest' in a judicial case, the prosecutors most definitely want to investigate the full extent of Wolfe's leaking. The media may want to portray this as a case of the Trump Admin. cracking down on journalistic freedoms, but more likely this is about finding out exactly what Wolfe leaked to an influential and connected journalist.
Update (June 26): The NY Times itself (the company which Watkins worked for) has published a scathing report on Watkins which both points out that she was using Wolfe as her source but that after her relationship with him ended, she had a second relationship with another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The question is, did the Times encourage her to use her sexuality and feminine wiles to gain inside information?
The fact that the Times itself published this story, outing one of their own journalists, smells of a PR move intended to get in front of any criticism the Times might receive. Indeed, in the very article the Times even noted that Watkins once told friends she "wanted off the beat," but "her editors were eager for scoops." A cynical mind might suggest that the Times is well aware of journalists using sex as a means to gain insider info, despite that it's "frowned upon" in the journalistic community, and is more than willing to look the other way if it means access they would otherwise be unable to gain.