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Snakes in Suits

Culture of sexual violence: Baylor University graduate suing school for failing to intervene in football team rapes

Baylor university rape
A Baylor University graduate who says she was raped by football players in 2013 sued the university Friday. Her lawsuit includes an allegation that 31 Baylor football players committed at least 52 acts of rape, including five gang rapes, between 2011 and 2014 — an estimate that far exceeds the number previously provided by school officials.

Those figures could not be independently verified Friday, and Baylor officials declined to comment on their accuracy.

The woman, identified in the suit by the pseudonym Elizabeth Doe, reports being gang raped by then-Baylor football players Tre'Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman after a party on April 18, 2013.

Those football players were previously named as suspects in a sexual assault police report related to that date but were not charged. They could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.

The woman, a 2014 graduate of Baylor, is now suing the university for Title IX violations and negligence.

"Our hearts go out to any victims of sexual assault," interim university president David E. Garland said in a statement late Friday. "Any assault involving members of our campus community is reprehensible and inexcusable. Baylor University has taken unprecedented actions that have been well-documented in response to the issue of past and alleged sexual assaults involving our campus community."

John Clune, the Colorado attorney who represents the woman, said he appreciated what Baylor has done to try to fix its sexual assault problem, but "this is one that needed to be filed."

"As hard as the events at Baylor have been for people to hear, what went on there was much worse than has been reported," he said in a statement.

Comment:



Whistle

Malmö, Sweden: Police ask for citizen assistance as city struggles with a spike in violence

Stockholm police
© Frederik Persson / Scanpix / Reuters
A group of policemen stand on the Drottninggatan shopping street in central Stockholm.
Police in the Swedish city of Malmö made an urgent plea for locals to assist them in solving scores of serious crimes, including dozens of attempted killings, murders, beatings, rapes and other offenses as police struggle to grapple with a spike in violence.

In an open letter, Malmö police chief Stefan Sinteus on Friday encouraged citizens to provide testimonies in a hope that they might help police to find perpetrators in an array of otherwise stalled investigations.

"I can assure you that the police in Malmö are doing everything we can for suspected perpetrators to be held accountable. But we cannot do it on our own. We depend on you, and your witness statements, to solve these violent crimes. Therefore I appeal now to you: Help us," Sinteus wrote.

The letter followed reports that potential witnesses in the murder of a 16-year-old Iraqi boy, Ahmed Obaid, murdered in the city's Rosengard district on January 14, were reluctant to provide any accounts after racist threats directed at his former schoolmates were posted under the photo of his dead body.

People 2

Drama teacher launches classes for migrant teenagers in Sweden on how to chat up local women

Teens
© Philippe Wojazer / Reuters
A drama teacher and actor has launched classes for "unaccompanied minors" among migrants in the town of Orebro, Sweden, helping them to understand how to flirt with local women, broadcaster SVT has reported.

"In the beginning they were completely useless at picking up women. They just came up and asked for their phone number. Which, of course, doesn't work. [Now] they've become much better," actor and drama teacher Mohammad Arvan, 32, explained to SVT.

It was actually the teenagers themselves who gave Arvan the idea, he told P4 radio in Orebro, after the young migrants asked him: "How do you meet Swedish girls?"

So, what do these chat-up master classes look like?

Attention

Cops save woman live-streaming her suicide attempt

police lights
Village of Rockville Centre Police officers, with the help of officers from across the country, were able to stop a woman from committing suicide while streaming it on Facebook Live earlier this week.

Police said that on Wednesday at 12:20 p.m., a 52-year-old woman from Rexburg, Idaho, was in her car, streaming live to Facebook that she was going to commit suicide. She had visible cuts on her left wrist and forearm.

California and Idaho police were able to track the woman's location through her phone and learned that she was in front of St. Agnes Cathedral. Rockville Centre Police were notified and they saved the woman.

Comment: This woman was prevented from taking her own life but many other live-stream suiciders were not.


Attention

Google recalls overseas staff to US after Trump immigration order

Sundar Pichai
© Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai.
Alphabet Inc.'s Google delivered a sharp message to staff traveling overseas who may be impacted by a new executive order on immigration from President Donald Trump: Get back to the U.S. now.

Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai slammed Trump's move in a note to employees Friday, telling them that more than 100 company staff are affected by the order.

"It's painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues," Pichai wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. "We've always made our view on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so."

Snakes in Suits

FEMEN activist on trial in France: "Europeans only support us when we protest somewhere else"

Femen Ucrania
© Desconocido
Interview by Arthur Gor (abridged):

In 2014, Yana Zhdanova was arrested for her topless staking of the wax figure of Putin at the Museum Grévin in Paris, which she called "the Poodoo doll performance". In an interview with "Apostrophe" she tells us why her judicial saga is not over yet, three years later [...] and why FEMEN ceased to exist.

People

Organizer & leader of Lugansk uprising dies in Moscow

Valery Bolotov

Valery Bolotov

PolitNavigator
1 + 2 - translated by J. Arnoldski

On January 27th, one of the main organizers of the storm of the Lugansk SBU directorate on April 6th, 2014, Valery Bolotov, died in Russia. Bolotov was the first head of the Lugansk People's Republic and the leader of the Russian Spring protests in Lugansk.

A colleague of the deceased, also a participant of the protests in Lugansk and the first speaker of the People's council of the LPR, Aleksey Karyakin, reported to PolitNavigator: "Yes, he died today at home. Presumably from a heart attack. Appropriate examinations will be done and then there will be more detailed information. For now there's nothing more I can say."

Attention

'Trump will get rid of all of you': Businessman at JFK kicks, shouts at Muslim employee

Passengers make their way at the International JFK airport in New York
© Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
Passengers make their way at the International JFK airport in New York
A Massachusetts businessman is facing hate crime charges after he reportedly shouted slurs at and kicked a Muslim airline employee at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. If convicted of all charges, he could face four years in prison.

According to prosecutors, Robin Rhodes had arrived at JFK Airport from Aruba and was waiting for a connecting flight to Massachusetts, when came up to the door of an office in Delta Sky Lounge on Wednesday evening and asked airline employee Rabeeya Khan, who wears a headscarf (hijab): "Are you [expletive] sleeping? Are you praying? What are you doing?"

Rhodes then punched the door, which hit the back of Khan's chair, prosecutors said. She then asked Rhodes what she did to him. Rhodes responded, "You did nothing but I am going to kick your [expletive] ass."


Rhodes reportedly kicked Khan in the right leg. In an effort to get away, Khan moved into a corner of the office, but Rhodes kicked the door, stepped into the office and blocked her from leaving, according to prosecutors.

Someone came over to the office and tried to calm Rhodes down, according to prosecutors. As Rhodes moved away from the door, Khan ran out of the office to the lounge's front desk.

Comment: See also: Anti-Muslim hate crimes skyrocket: Legacy of 'war on terror'?


Magnify

UK grad student finds massive network of fake Twitter accounts

tweets by location
A computer scientist in London has stumbled upon massive networks of fake Twitter accounts - with the largest consisting of over 350,000 profiles - which may have been used to 'fake' numbers of followers, send spam, and boost interest in trending topics.

On Twitter, bots are accounts that are run remotely by someone who automates the messages they send and activities they carry out.

Some people pay to get bots to follow their account or to dilute chatter about controversial subjects.

As The BBC reports, UK researchers accidentally uncovered the lurking networks while probing Twitter to see how people use it.

The network of 350,000 bots stood out because all the accounts in it shared several subtle characteristics that revealed they were linked. These included:
  • tweets coming from places where nobody lives
  • messages being posted only from Windows phones
  • almost exclusively including quotes from Star Wars novels

Handcuffs

Two Florida teenagers arrested, accused of planning mass shooting at middle school

The Villages Charter Middle School
© WESH 2 News / YouTube
Two middle school students in Central Florida have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder after officials at their school learned of their alleged plot to "initiate a mass shooting."

Two males, ages 13 and 14, were arrested at their homes Thursday and accused of planning a mass shooting for Friday, January 27, at The Villages Charter Middle School in Lady Lake, Florida, according to the Sumter County Sheriff's Office.

The students both acknowledged discussions with one another about the plot, the sheriff's office said, adding that both also referenced as a model the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 that left 13 people dead and more than 20 wounded.