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Hungary's Constitutional Court overturns village's controversial ban on mosques & headscarves


RT
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:47 UTC
Head scarf
© Csaba Segesvari / AFPA woman rests beside the border fence near the border village Asotthalom, at the Hungarian-Serbian border.
Hungary's Constitutional Court has overturned a controversial ban on building mosques and women wearing Muslim headscarves that was imposed by the far-right mayor of Asotthalom, a Hungarian border town.

The judges also annulled Asotthalom's decision to prohibit muezzins from performing Muslim calls to prayer in public areas.

The restrictions "aim to limit directly the freedom of conscience and religion, as well freedom of speech," Hungary's top court ruled on Wednesday.

The anti-Islamic measures, which were imposed in November by Mayor Laszlo Toroczkai of the far-right Jobbik party, were challenged in court by Hungary's ombudsman for fundamental rights, Laszlo Szekely.

Comment: See also: New Hungarian law mandates all asylum seekers be detained in border camps, returned to Serbia

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Airplane

Public relations firestorm: United Airlines mercilessly trolled after passenger dragged from overbooked flight


RT
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 22:20 UTC
united airlines passenger dragged flight
© Acoste Reeding / YouTube
The PR firestorm which engulfed United Airlines since a passenger was dragged off one of its overbooked flights shows no sign of being extinguished. In fact, the incident has inspired Twitter users to invent company mottos for the company.

The incident that sparked the debacle took place on United Flight 3411 from Chicago O'Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday. Videos filmed by other passengers showed a man screaming and resisting as airport police forcibly removed him from his seat.

People across the world reacted with shock and outrage when the footage emerged. Since then, United's bungled attempts to address the incident have managed only to heighten public outcry.

The videos show the man being dragged down the aisle on his back with his stomach exposed. There's a significant amount of blood around his mouth and his body is limp.

Comment: Just deserts: United Airlines takes $800m hit in value after passenger dragged off plane

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Heart - Black

Heartless: Spanish professors arrested for selling fake cancer, Alzheimer's drugs


RT
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 19:10 UTC
drugs
© Cattaneo / GlobalLookPress
Five people, including two academics, have been detained by Spanish police on charges of fraud, after allegedly selling a fake cancer drug that had neither sales authorization nor any proven beneficial effects.

Among those allegedly involved in the criminal scheme were two professors from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), who took "advantage of the academic and professional recognition brought about by their posts," a spokesman of the Palma de Majorca police department told AFP, without revealing any details about the professors' identities or their posts at the university.

One of the suspects reportedly created a non-profit foundation that he claimed was linked to the UIB. The two academics then supposedly promoted what they called a "miraculous anti-cancer product" they developed through advertising campaigns on social networks.

Police confirmed that the cancer drugs that were sold by the foundation created by the academics were in fact a "placebo" that has been never approved by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS).
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Biohazard

India's Supreme Court shuts down cell tower after man claims EMF radiation gave him cancer

Dhananjay Mahapatra |
The Times of India
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 19:09 UTC
cell phone tower
A 42-year-old domestic help will go down in history as the man who persuaded the Supreme Court to shut down a mobile phone tower on the ground that its electromagnetic radiation+ afflicted him with cancer.

Last year, Harish Chand Tiwari, who works at the residence of Prakash Sharma in the Dal Bazar area of Gwalior, moved the SC through advocate Nivedita Sharma, complaining that a BSNL tower illegally installed on a neighbour's rooftop in 2002 had exposed him to harmful radiation 24x7 for the last 14 years.

The order is likely to further fuel the debate over the effects of radiation from mobile phone towers+ with a section of activists feeling vindicated while the government argues there is no evidence to prove that the waves cause cancer.

Radiation from the BSNL tower, less than 50 metres from the house where he worked, afflicted him with Hodgkin's Lymphoma caused by continuous and prolonged exposure to radiation, Tiwari complained.

In a recent order, a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha said, "We direct that the particular mobile tower shall be deactivated by BSNL within seven days from today." The tower will be the first to be closed on an individual's petition alleging harmful radiation.
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Gold Bar

New 'gold rush' in California after wet winter


Sputnik News
Mon, 03 Apr 2017 03:42 UTC
Gold in California
© Sputnik/Alexander Liskin
An extremely wet winter in California has caused a lot of damage, but there are those who welcome the erosion brought about by the long rains: gold seekers.

Heavy winter rains have brought troubles for Californians, with the Oroville Dam spillway destruction and subsequent evacuation arguably the scariest. But the rains have also displaced a significant amount of topsoil and smaller rocks, providing new opportunities for those looking for gold.

According to a report by KPIX TV, heavy rains have washed out legacy gold mines, sending chunks of the metal down streams and rivers. Officials with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) told KPIX that erosion concentrates the heavier gold by removing the lighter rock and soil.

A mountain property owner, known as "Miner Gary" Thomas, who used to find some gold on his property now and then, said, according to KPIX, that now is the perfect time to look for gold.
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Document

California community college becomes first to pass Israel divestment resolution

Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 00:00 UTC
De Anza college
© De Anza College
A community college in Cupertino, California, has become the first educational institution of its kind in the US to support a resolution in favor of divestment from companies that profit from Israel's violations of Palestinian rights.

The resolution, which the student senate passed on 15 March, urges the De Anza College's board of trustees to pull the college's investments from three US-based corporations that enable Israel's rights violations - Hewlett-Packard, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar - as well as from G4S, the largest private security firm in the world. G4S has provided equipment and services to Israeli military checkpoints and inside prisons where Palestinians have been tortured. Due to mounting international boycott pressure, G4S announced last December that it was exiting most of its businesses with Israel, but remains co-owner of a police training center.

The resolution also calls on the community college to implement a socially responsible investment policy. In authoring the resolution, members of Students for Justice at De Anza investigated and discussed themes of mass incarceration, state violence and settler-colonialism from the US to Palestine, according to Sara Elzeiny, a Students for Justice member.

Comment: As student-faculty consensus calls for divestment increase, some campuses have been intimidated by the Anti-Defamation League to treat BDS efforts as "hostile events" that the universities should deem security threats. If BDS wasn't effective, there wouldn't be such intense blowback.

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Bomb

Bomb scare: Triple blasts near Borussia Dortmund football team bus - Update


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 18:12 UTC
German bus bombscare
© Odd Andersen / AFP
A bomb went off near the bus of the German football team Borussia Dortmund as it prepared to leave the hotel for their home Champions League quarterfinal game, the team has said. Police have confirmed that three explosions occurred, but did not say what exactly caused them.

The club said in a twitter post that there was "a bomb blast" close to the team bus, adding that the team players are now "in safety" and "no threat is posed to the stadium," where the quarterfinal was due to take place.

"We can confirm that there were three explosions near the Borussia team bus," police have announced. Large police forces have been deployed to the scene, the law enforcement added.

The wheel rims of the bus were destroyed by the blast and one person was injured, police announced.

The incident occurred around 19:00 (local time) (18:00 GMT) ahead of the team's Champion League quarterfinal game against AS Monaco.

Comment: Update

April 12 RT (11:39) and (17:12)

German police have searched the apartments of two suspects with Islamic backgrounds; one has been arrested and officials are attempting to secure an arrest warrant for the second. Letters found at the scene of the blast and one posted online, referenced Germany's involvement in anti-IS operations:
According to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche, it opens with: "In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful," and also mentions the Berlin attack.

It also references Germany's military involvement in surveillance operations against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) as the reason for the attack, reports Reuters, citing Sueddeutsche.

It adds that athletes and other celebrities "in Germany and other Kreuzfahrer [Crusader] nations" would be on a "death list of the Islamic state" and this will apply until German Tornadoes are withdrawn and the American airbase is closed at Ramstein.

[..]

Investigators are also examining a second letter claiming responsibility for the attack that was published online on Tuesday evening by a group named Antifa, a so-called "anti-fascist scene," which claimed the attack was a "symbol for the policy of BVB [Borussia Dortmund]," reports Reuters citing Focus magazine, referencing neo-Nazi and racist fans of the club.


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Green Light

Hysteria! Sweden's best selling newspaper says 'ban cars to stop terror'

Virginia Hale
Breitbart
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 18:14 UTC
Swedish truck attack
© Michael Campanella/Getty Images
Cars and other vehicles "have turned into deadly weapons", and should be banished from cities to stop attacks like the one in Stockholm from happening in future, according to Aftonbladet editorialist Eva Franchell.

Crackdowns on immigration or extremist ideology are not the way forward when it comes to terror prevention, according to the veteran journalist, writing after Friday's terror attack in Stockholm left four people dead.

Instead, it is cars — which she calls "effective murder machines" — that Franchell says "must simply be removed from city centres and places where people gather, if people are to be protected in future".

Vehicles are "easy to steal, and so nothing has been able to stop their advance", writes Ms. Franchell.

"It just isn't reasonable that a big truck can be driven right into one of Stockholm's busiest streets on a Friday afternoon right before Easter."
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2 + 2 = 4

Pennsylvania teacher sentenced to 5 years for sexting with student, blames him as aggressor

Victor Skinner
EAG News
Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:50 UTC
Jenna Leahey
Jenna Leahey
A former Pennsylvania high school English teacher was sentenced to five years in prison for sexting with a 16-year-old student, who she attempted to paint as the aggressor.

Former Parsippany Hills High School teacher and field hockey coach Jenna Leahey pleaded guilty in January to endangering the welfare of a child in a pleas agreement that allowed the 35-year-old to escape a more serious charge of official misconduct, the Daily Record reports.

Leahey repeatedly rejected plea offers from prosecutors last year and initially alleged her sexually explicit conversations with a junior at the school between February and June 2013 were instigated by the student.

But a selection of the thousands of text messages exchanged between the two - read out loud in court by Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Meg Rodriguez - told a much different story. "I'm horny all the time," "It's wrong; I still want it though," "You are one lucky kid," and "God, I want u, I know I shouldn't" and others far more explicit showed the relationship went both ways.
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People

Same pollsters who predicted Hillary's win now say: New poll reveals 63% of American voters want more US intervention in Syria


RT
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 17:48 UTC
Donald Trump
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
A new poll has found that the majority of American voters, 63 percent, want the Trump administration to do more in Syria. It was conducted as the Trump administration carried out a missile strike on Syria over allegations of a chemical gas attack.

The new Morning Consult/Politico poll published on Wednesday found that 31 percent of Americans believe the US should be doing "much more" in Syria, while another 32 percent believe the US should be doing "somewhat more."

The poll also found that 66 percent of respondents supported the Trump administration's decision to launch a missile strike on the Syrian Army's Shyrat Airbase last Friday.
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