Society's ChildS


Attention

Residents of East London create satirical road signs to shame police into action


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 16:12 UTC
hoax street signs
© Vickie Flores / Global Look Press‘Crack pickup point’: East London residents create road signs to shame police into action
Community activists erect hoax street signs in residential streets near Columbia Road, east London. September 16, 2018
A group of east London residents left frustrated by an escalation in drug-related crime in their neighborhood have created road signs such as "Crack pickup point" in an attempt to shame the Met Police into taking action.

A group of anonymous street artists have installed six signs on lampposts and have painted a vehicle parking bay marked "Drug dealers only" after being commissioned by Weavers Community Action Group from Tower Hamlets, east London, reports the Telegraph.

The guerrilla street artists known as the Columbia Road Cartel, who were asked by the Action Group to help highlight the spiraling crime levels around Columbia Road, near Shoreditch, have created fake signs that read "Give way to oncoming drug deals," "Needle free zone," "Crack pickup point," and parking bays labeled "Drug dealers only."

Comment: All manner of crime appears to be soaring in London, can you blame them?!

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Arrow Down

Tesla faces Justice Department probe over 'funding secured' tweets by CEO Elon Musk


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 23:36 UTC
Summary
Tesla cars
© Mike Blake / ReutersNewly manufactured Tesla cars parked at the airport in Burbank, California, August 24, 2018.
Elon Musk has landed his electric car company in hot water, with the US Justice Department placing Tesla under investigation over statements made by the CEO on Twitter, according to news reports.

The DOJ probe was launched after Musk boasted on Twitter that he had "funding secured" for taking Tesla private last month, Bloomberg News reported, citing two anonymous sources.
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Heart - Black

Surgeon who appeared on reality TV dating show charged with drugging, raping women

Andrew Blankstein
NBC News
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 17:17 UTC
Cerissa Laura Riley_ Grant William Robicheaux
© OCDACerissa Laura Riley and Grant William Robicheaux
Both incidents are alleged to have happened in 2016 but investigators suspect there may be more victims.

A California surgeon who once appeared on a reality TV dating show and a female friend have been charged with drugging and raping two women - and investigators believe the couple could have "thousands" of more victims, police said Tuesday.

On April 10, 2016, Dr. Grant William Robicheaux, 38, and Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, are accused of taking a 32-year-old woman they met at a Newport Beach restaurant to a party, then "escorting her to Robicheaux's apartment once she was intoxicated," where they drugged and raped her, said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

A few months later, on October 2, 2016, Robicheaux and Riley allegedly drank with a woman at a Newport Beach bar until she became unconscious and then they sexually assaulted her with the intention of raping her, a statement from the district attorney said.

The first victim reported the incident to police the next day and tested positive for multiple drugs, the statement said. The second victim screamed after she gained consciousness, and a neighbor called the Newport Beach Police Department.
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Document

Gender X option for 'non-binary' people will soon be included on New York birth certificates

Megan Sheets
Daily Mail
Thu, 13 Sep 2018 22:47 UTC
birth certificate
A third gender category 'X' for people who don't identify as male or female will be added to New York birth certificates beginning January 1, 2019.
A third gender category for people who don't identify as be male or female will soon be added to New York birth certificates.

The New York City Council and Board of Health passed legislation that will implement a new non-binary identity category known as 'X' beginning January 1, 2019.

Mayor Bill De Blasio came out in support of the bill when it was introduced earlier this summer, saying that it would 'allow transgender and gender nonconforming New Yorkers to live with the dignity and respect they deserve'.

City officials say De Blasio is expected to sign the legislation soon.

The measure - which passed 41-6 on Wednesday - was introduced by Council Speaker Corey Johnson in June.

Comment: Two other countries that have drunk the gender-is-a-social-construct Kool-Aid.

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Family

RT America debuts daytime news show 'In Question'


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 22:46 UTC
RT daytime news In Question
© RTOn Wednesday Sept. 19, RT America will premiere "In Question," the channel's first original daytime news program.
With coverage of breaking news, science and technology updates, and sports, In Question will be presented by its dedicated daytime news team and will air daily at 12pm, 1pm, and 2pm EST.

RT America news director Mikhail Solodovnikov explains that what sets the show apart, is that "it is smart television for curious audience."
Give us half an hour and you will learn more about the entire world than after hours of watching any other domestic news show
Anya Parampil, the host of In Question, got her start with RT America in 2014 as a producer and reporter. Since then, she frequently anchored RT America's evening news and co-hosted special events. Parampil has led a number special reports on such subjects as the 2015 Baltimore protests, and reported from the field on breaking news stories throughout the Middle East, Europe, and South Korea. Her outstanding achievement in journalism was recognized at the 2017 New York Film Festivals.
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Books

New regulations demand that UK universities give more top degrees to black students

Camilla Turner
The Telegraph
Fri, 07 Sep 2018 21:02 UTC
college students
The Office for Students (OfS) has announced plans to overhaul its guidelines for boosting diversity in higher education.
Universities could be punished unless they give a higher proportion of top degrees to black students, under new proposals drawn up by the regulator.

The Office for Students (OfS) has announced plans to overhaul its guidelines for boosting diversity in higher education, in what it says is the "biggest shake up" since 2004.

If institutions fail to comply with the regulator's new "tougher" national targets for increasing the number of disadvantaged students, they could be penalised through a fine or even de-registered.

Chris Millward, the OfS director for fair access and participation, said that universities will no longer be able to "mark their own homework" on their plans to up their intake of 18-year-olds from poor backgrounds.

Instead, the new regulator, which came into force earlier this year, plans to set a series of national targets that all universities will be expected to meet.

Comment: The concept of merit is dying. Universities may as well give out degrees based on looks or popularity.

Unmaking affirmative action: Race-rigging college admissions is a zero-sum game

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Light Sabers

ACLU files lawsuit against Facebook over gender discrimination in job advertisements


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 20:57 UTC
facebook
© Alexander Pohl / Global Look Press
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, accusing the social media giant of gender discrimination in job advertisements on its platform.

The ACLU charges, filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday, alleges that Facebook allows employers to target job ads for positions in male-dominated fields exclusively to younger men. The complaint targets Facebook and ten employers who the ACLU says ran gender-discriminatory ads.

"Facebook is violating federal civil rights law. Period," the organization tweeted Tuesday. Under US law, companies are forbidden from discriminating in recruitment and from tailoring job ads to a specific gender or age range.
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TV

Projecting much? Sesame Street writer confirms that Bert and Ernie were a gay couple


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 20:40 UTC
Bert and Ernie
© Larry Downing / Reuters
A writer for Sesame Street has confirmed the long-running theory that the kids show's beloved characters Bert and Ernie were actually a same-sex couple.

Sesame Street writer and songwriter Mark Saltzman says the famous roommates were inspired by his own relationship with his life partner, film editor Arnold 'Arnie' Glassman, who he was with for over two decades until Glassman's death in 2003.

Saltzman, who joined the show's writing team in 1984, said people would often refer to him and Glassman as Ernie and Bert, respectively, and he didn't have any other way to "contextualise" the characters.

"I remember one time that a pre-schooler [in San Francisco] turned to her mum and asked 'Are Bert and Ernie lovers?' and that, coming from a pre-schooler, was fun," Saltzman told Queerty.

Comment: Puppets can be gay?

Update: From RT:
Sesame Street has denied claims by a former writer that the kids show's beloved characters Bert and Ernie were in fact a same-sex couple.

The show issued a statement clarifying that Bert and Ernie were "best friends," and "do not have a sexual orientation," in response to comments made by Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman, suggesting the puppets were gay.


Saltzman told Queerty in an interview that when he was writing for the characters, he had always felt that they were gay. "I didn't have any other way to contextualize them," he said, adding that they were inspired by his own relationship with his life partner Arnie Glassman.

For many, his remarks appeared to confirm what they had long speculated about the TV roommates' sexualities. However, the affirmation was short lived as Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street, countered the claim, reiterating that the characters were puppets with no sexual preference.

Frank Oz, the man who created the grumpy puppet Bert, also took to Twitter to declare the characters were not gay. He said that there was more to a person than their sexuality and dismissed the question as irrelevant.


Both tweets resulted in a backlash from angered fans questioning why the creators felt the need to refute Saltzman's comments.

Meanwhile, other users pondered how in this day and age people were arguing over the sexuality of puppets.


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Stop

Senate passes STOP Act intended to combat influx of synthetic opioids into US


RT
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 18:26 UTC
Fentanyl seized Chicago
© Joshua LottBags of Fentanyl seized at the mail center in O'Hare Airport, Chicago
The Senate has passed a bill aimed at combating the influx of synthetic opioids into the US, as the nation grapples with soaring overdose rates.

The 'Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention' Act, or STOP Act, was passed with a 99-1 vote on Monday, almost one month after President Donald Trump demanded the flow, via the postal system, of synthetic opioids -such as the deadly painkiller Fentanyl- into the US be stopped. Trump has repeatedly called for action to combat America's opioid crisis, and has called foreign Fentanyl shipments from China "a form of warfare.


The bill requires that all packages entering the US include electronic data on what's inside, who shipped it, and from where. It also funds treatment programs, and changes certain laws to make addiction-fighting medicine more widely available.

The bill will now need to return to the House, so that representatives can approve changes made in the Senate. However, with each passing day, more Americans die of opioid overdoses.

Comment: The opioid crisis won't be easily solved; stemming one source of the supply won't go far without targeting the root causes and those who benefit from the drug trade.

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Sheriff

73-year-old woman mauled to death by police K9 after she gives permission for officers to search her garden

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 19:55 UTC
dog attack
Proving just how dangerous it can be to give police permission to search your property, a 73-year-old woman died after being mauled by a police K9. She had just given police permission to search her garden for an alleged drug dealer before the dog attacked her.

Irene Collins, who'd been battling lung cancer and emphysema, was attacked in her own home by the police officer's German shepherd as Cleveland police searched her property for a drug dealer.

During the course of the search at her home in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, officer Mark Baines let his dog loose and it went inside the home of Collins.

"On 16 July 2014, officers from Cleveland police received information regarding a male suspect involved in a drug transaction. It was believed the suspect may be in a garden at the rear of Penrith Road," assistant coroner Karen Welch said at the opening of the hearing this week, according to the Guardian.

"In the course of the search, a dog handler, PC [Mark] Baines, and his police dog Dano were brought in. Irene Collins gave permission for her garden to be searched and remained inside her home.
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