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Authorities still looking for 'key' information on missing 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez

Ella Torres
ABC News
Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:40 UTC
Missing child
© Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS via NewscomA missing poster of 5-year old Dulce Maria Alavez is shown posted on the window of the Bridgeton Police department in Bridgeton, N.J., September 18, 2019.
The search for 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez, who has been missing for more than two weeks after vanishing from a New Jersey park, continues with few answers and few clues, authorities said Friday.

"We are still searching for that key piece of information that we need to lead us to Dulce or to the circumstances surrounding her disappearance," Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McCrae said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

She implored the public to contact officials with any piece of information that may help, including seeing a child that looks like Dulce or observing that a person they know may have been behaving differently within the last two weeks.

"No piece of information is too small or too insignificant," Webb-McCrae said.
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Bizarro Earth

Four homeless men bludgeoned to death in Manhattan


BBC
Sat, 05 Oct 2019 22:06 UTC
manhattan
© GettyThe bodies were in Manhattan
Four men thought to be homeless have been battered to death in New York in the space of a single night, with a fifth critically injured, police say.

Their suspected killer was detained by police as an attack was in progress in Chinatown and the suspected weapon, a long metal object, was recovered.

All of the victims died of blunt trauma to the head and appear to have been asleep when they were attacked.

They were assaulted at three different locations in Manhattan.

Comment: Just a few days ago: Police officer stabs four of his fellow policemen to death in Paris - UPDATE: Killer had 'converted to Islam' and 'heard voices' before rampage

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Star of David

Israeli Supreme Court quashes prosecutor's attempts to reopen case against Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Fri, 04 Oct 2019 19:35 UTC
Dareen Tatour palestinian poem
© Oren Ziv/ActivestillsDareen Tatour at the Nazareth Court House, September 2016.
Four years after she was arrested by Israeli police over a poem she had written and published on social media, Dareen Tatour's legal battles are finally over.

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected last week a petition filed by the state prosecutors that was made in an attempt to reopen the case against her.

Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was convicted of three counts of incitement and supporting a terrorist organization in May 2018, over a series of poems she published on social media. She spent three years under house arrest and months in prison before being released.

Comment:

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Pistol

Woman shot when dog jumps onto car console, causes gunfire


ABC News
Fri, 04 Oct 2019 10:45 UTC
Dog in car
An Oklahoma woman was shot in the thigh when a dog inside the vehicle with her jumped onto a back seat console, causing a gun under the console to fire.

The Enid News & Eagle reports that Tina Springer was in the passenger seat of the vehicle that had stopped Thursday to wait for a train in Enid in northern Oklahoma. The yellow Labrador retriever, which belongs to the 79-year-old driver Brent Parks, was in the back seat and jumped onto the folding console. That's when the .22-caliber handgun under the console went off.
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Bizarro Earth

Fringe group claims it planned 'eat the babies' stunt at AOC town hall meeting

Savannah Behrmann
USA Today
Fri, 04 Oct 2019 17:25 UTC
ocasio-cortez troll eat babies larouche
© C_SPAN
A fringe political group claimed responsibility for a strange stunt at a town hall speech by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was interrupted repeatedly by a woman who boisterously claimed people need to save the planet by "eating babies."

The woman, who had taken off her jacket to reveal a T-shirt that read "Save the planet. Eat the children," was acting on behalf of the political group LaRouchePAC, the group tweeted Thursday night..

Video shows the woman continuing to raise her voice as Ocasio-Cortez shows little reaction. The woman goes on, saying, "Even if we would bomb Russia, we still have too many people, too much pollution, so we have to get rid of the babies. Just stopping having babies is not enough; we need to eat the babies."

Comment: However tasteless the stunt, the LaRouche group pointed up the lunacy of the Green New Deal's logic if taken to its conclusion. The platform does include population reduction which is espoused by many of its backers.

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Stock Down

Is it time for Sweden to brace for an economic downturn?


The Local, Sweden
Sat, 05 Oct 2019 17:10 UTC
Ylva Hedén Westerdahl
© Anders Wiklund/TTYlva Hedén Westerdahl.
With growth faltering nationally, and the prospect of hard Brexit and a global trade war on the horizon, is it time for Sweden to start getting ready for an economic downturn?

Ylva Hedén Westerdahl, head of forecasting at the National Institute of Economic Research, said Swedes should not think today's good times will continue forever. While external shocks like Brexit or a trade war will only hit exporters directly, indirectly they could push down house prices, destabilize financial institutions, make salary growth stagnate and cause rising unemployment. "When house prices fall, then house-owners start to feel poorer and so they cut their consumption and start to save more," she told the TT news agency.

Another big worry for the property market is whether the large numbers of newly built houses shortly to come onto the market will be sold. "The question is how they are going to be sold," Westerdahl said. "Overproduction means that housing investments and prices could fall even more." But banks are not as exposed to mortgages as they were in the run up to the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis.
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Arrow Up

Saudi Arabia parts with another medieval law: Saudi women and foreign couples now allowed to rent hotel rooms


RT
Sat, 05 Oct 2019 17:06 UTC
saudi hotel
© REUTERS/Hamad I MohammedNewly fitted bedroom of Al Koot Heritage Hotel is seen during the inauguration ceremony of Al Koot Heritage Hotel in Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, July 8, 2018. Picture taken July 8, 2018.
Breaking with its behind-the-times relationship laws, Saudi Arabia has decided to let foreign men and women share hotel rooms, as part of a campaign to make the kingdom more appealing to holidaymakers.

Before the new reforms, foreign men and women had to prove they were related if they wanted to shack up together in the kingdom. The new policy will also apply to Saudi women, who were previously prohibited from renting hotel rooms by themselves.

Saudi nationals will still be required to show family ID or proof of relationship when checking into hotels, but such documentation will not be required for foreign tourists, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage confirmed on Friday. The agency added that all women, including Saudis, can book and stay in hotels alone.

The kingdom announced last week that it would begin accepting tourists from 49 countries as part of an initiative to diversify its energy-focused economy. Female visitors will not be required to cover themselves head-to-toe, but have been instructed to dress modestly. Alcohol is still strictly prohibited.

Riyadh hopes the relaxed rules will attract up to 100 million tourists annually by 2030. The deeply conservative country has been slowly parting ways with its more extreme laws. Last year, it ended its uniquely backward ban on women driving.

Comment: Saudi Arabia may still be a 's***hole', but at least it's slowly entering the 21st century!

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Eye 1

Trump issues entry ban on new migrants who can't afford health insurance


RT
Sat, 05 Oct 2019 09:49 UTC

Comment: Given that Americans are expected to be responsible for their own health insurance, it's logical that the newly-arrived are too.


Trump and wall
© Reuters / Tom Brenner
The White House has issued a proclamation demanding that migrants prove they can afford to pay for healthcare in the United States before they are allowed to enter the country, kicking off fierce debate among netizens.

Issued late on Friday, the new directive says immigrants must prove their ability to purchase health insurance within 30 days of entering the country, arguing the uninsured are passing on costs to US taxpayers and over-burdening the healthcare system.

An alien will financially burden the United States healthcare system unless the alien will be covered by approved health insurance... within 30 days of the alien's entry into the United States, or unless the alien possesses the financial resources to pay for reasonably foreseeable medical costs.

"Healthcare providers and taxpayers bear substantial costs in paying for medical expenses incurred by people who lack health insurance," the document reads, adding the problems are worsened "by admitting thousands of aliens who have not demonstrated any ability to pay for their healthcare costs."
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Oscar

Nobel Peace Prize for Greta? Bad idea, say two-thirds of Germans


RT
Sat, 05 Oct 2019 13:28 UTC
Greta Thunberg cartoon
© AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRANDAn activist holds up placard depicting the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg during "Fridays for future" demonstration, a worldwide climate strike against governmental inaction towards climate breakdown and environmental pollution in Stockholm on September 27, 2019.
Greta Thunberg's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize has been lauded by mainstream media outlets and public figures in Europe, but not everyone is as enthusiastic. Only 15% of Germans welcome the idea, a new poll found.

66 percent of German citizens responded with a clear 'no' to the prospect of Thunberg being given the prestigious award, according to a YouGov survey on climate change and the environment. Only 15 percent supported the nomination and 19 percent were undecided.

Comment: Greta definitely doesn't deserve this kind of honor, and it's good to see that the majority of Germans agree.


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USA

The Supreme Court will decide whether encouraging illegal immigration is protected speech

Kevin Daley
Daily Caller
Fri, 04 Oct 2019 21:40 UTC
migrants illegals border
© Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
The Supreme Court will decide whether a federal law that makes it a crime to "encourage or induce" someone to enter the country illegally violates the First Amendment.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law is unconstitutional in December 2018. The justices added the case to the docket for their forthcoming term Friday.

"The provisions here are primarily directed at conduct, not speech," the government's petition to the high court reads. "To the extent they even reach speech, they do so only incidentally by prohibiting communications that foster unlawful activity by particular individuals, which have long been understood to be outside the scope of the First Amendment."
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