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Homeschooling your child in New York City may earn you a visit from CPS for neglect

homeschooling
Homeschooling your child in New York City could earn a visit from Child Protective Services for neglect — even if you've followed all procedures required by the public school system to withdraw from its programs.

Tanya Acevedo, as The Federalist reports, experienced firsthand the punitive bureaucracy in place, essentially deeming all homeschooling parents child abusers.

Acevedo withdrew her child from school this winter, filing all necessary paperwork required by the government. But that wasn't enough to stave off a visit from CPS, who showed up at her residence unannounced to investigate allegations of "educational neglect."

"After Tanya let them in," the Federalist explains, "a CPS investigator insisted that they interview her child in private, and inspected their apartment, including a look inside Tanya's refrigerator — standard practice for a home under investigation for 'neglect.' The officer left Tanya with stern instructions to produce documents and her child the next day at the CPS office."

Acevedo wasted no time in contacting the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) for assistance with her case, and parsing out the New York Public School District's mountain of red tape to see where she might have erred.

In an interview, Acevedo told HSLDA she had indeed filed all the necessary paperwork — even sending two required forms by certified mail, among other meticulous measures.

Eye 1

Mark Zuckerberg funds research firm in bid to develop mind-reading brain implants

mark zuckerberger and wife Chan
© Reuters
Billionaire pays for research into 'neural recording', a creepy-sounding technique which could change the lives of people suffering serious illnesses

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is funding the development of technology with the potential to read humans' minds.

The billionaire has just pledged to hand over £40 million to researchers working to combat deadly diseases.

This cash will be distributed by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, an organisation which aims to "enable doctors to cure, prevent or manage all diseases during our children's lifetime".

Some of the projects are likely to ring alarm bells among paranoid people who fear technological progress will come at the expense of human freedom.

Laptop

Falling into a 'Facebook hole': How perception of time is altered when we go online

kid and facebook
© AFP/Getty ImagesWhere time stands still...
If you've ever popped on to Facebook for a quick look, and then realised you've been there for an hour, don't worry - scientists say it's not your fault. Researchers have revealed that when we go online, we really do lose track of time. They say Facebook is the worst offender, and that users suffer an 'impaired perception of time.'

'We found evidence that Internet and Facebook related stimuli can distort time perception due to attention and arousal related mechanisms,' the University of Kent psychologists wrote in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

'This highlights that Facebook related stimuli lead to an overestimation of time compared to Internet related stimuli, and both Facebook and Internet related stimuli were associated with better discriminability of time compared to matched neutral stimuli.'

The team from the University's School of Psychology found that the way people perceived time varied according to whether their internet use was specifically Facebook related or more general. The researchers concluded that Facebook-related stimuli can lead to an underestimate of time compared to general internet use, but that both lead to a distortion of time.

Snakes in Suits

Orchestrated chaos? Police ordered to stand down as provocateurs incite Berkeley riots

incendio uc berkeley protestas
© Brittany Hosea-Small/UC Berkeley
We know a lot of the chaos we're seeing on the US stage is being orchestrated from the bottom up and the top down.

Now video has emerged showing what appears to be an agent provocateur troop infiltrating the Berkeley protest to deliberately turn it into a full on riot.

Check these guys dressed in black with black hoodies and face masks out as they move through the crowd together in a row:


Snakes in Suits

Top German agency orders all refugees fingerprinted to fight 'benefit fraud'

German immigration migrant fingerprint
© Kai Pfaffenbach
In a bid to combat "benefit fraud" and the use of "cheat-identities," Germany's federal migration agency wants all regional outlets to fingerprint all asylum seekers, though it admits that they often lack the resources to achieve this, local media report.

According to a statement from the Federal Migration and Refugee Office (BAMF), it is already impossible to get away with using multiple identities on a federal level.

"Asylum seekers are registered on the basis of their biometrical data, including fingerprints, and are given forgery-proof identity documents, the 'arrival certificate,'" BAMF said in a statement.

Bomb

Explosion hits chemical plant in Tongling, East China

An explosion has rocked a chemical plant in Tongling
© HAO FANG / YouTube
An explosion has rocked a chemical plant in Tongling, in the province of Anhui in eastern China, local media outlets report. No casualties have been reported so far.


Pictures tweeted by Xinhua and People's Daily China show massive fireballs erupting from the factory building.


The explosion caused a fire, which has now been brought under control without causing any casualties, according to the official Tongling Daily, cited by Reuters.


Handcuffs

First 'killer-clown' prankster jailed in UK

Michael March killer clown
© Owen Humphreys/PAMichael March terrified a couple walking past him after banging a foot-long axe on the floor in South Shields
An axe-wielding "killer clown" prankster has been jailed after he chased a pregnant woman the night before Halloween.

Michael March, 18, is thought to be the first person imprisoned following the craze that swept across the UK.

Newcastle Crown Court heard he terrified a couple walking past him after banging the foot long axe on the floor in South Shields just after 9pm.

The woman, who was 22 weeks pregnant, threw a brick at him in an attempt to defend herself before he ran off.

Jailing him for six months, Judge Jamie Hill QC said: "Brandishing an axe and threatening people in the street is serious whatever the context."

Nicholas Rooke, prosecuting, told the court that after the police were called they traced March via CCTV and found him with the axe and a clown mask in his backpack.

Георгиевская ленточка

Donetsk commander Givi killed in terrorist attack

givi
The commander of the Donetsk People's Republic's Somali battalion, Mikhail Tolstykh, famous as Givi, has been killed in a terrorist attack in Donetsk, the Ministry of Defense of the DPR has reported.

"Regrettably, we can confirm this fact," the DPR's military spokesman, Eduard Basurin, has told journalists.

The terrorist attack took place at around 6:00 A.M. Givi was reportedly killed in his office by a Shmel flamethrower. "The death of this man was beneficial to Ukrainian special forces," the DPR command commented.

Employees of the Ministry for Emergency Situations are working at the scene.


Comment: Inessa Sinchougova's tribute to a hero of the Donbass:
Since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in 2014, commanders Givi and Motorola, both of whom have now perished at the hands of the Kiev junta, have been defending the Donbass region from the Ukrainian army, the far-Right Ukro-fascists, paid mercenaries, and their Washington-based founders.

Throughout the conflict, Western media portrayed them as rebels and separatists, despite the fact they were defending their own land.


After the murder of Motorola, Givi recorded the following message - clearly spoken in mourning for his friend. It is with great sadness to have to report that Givi did not live to see a peaceful Donbass.
That's 3 top rebels fighters assassinated 2 months. Assuming Kiev was behind this, and the CIA through them, is this provocation intended to rile the Donbass militias and provoke them into re-engaging with the fascist Ukie horde?


Attention

Fourth night of violence in Paris suburbs amid allegations of police rape and brutality

Paris violence
© Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty ImagesRioters burned cars in the Paris suburb amid simmering anger over the alleged rape of a local man during his arrest last week
Violence spread in Paris's northern suburbs for a fourth night and French police arrested a dozen people, police said on Wednesday, amid accusations that police officers raped and beat a man they were detaining.

Dozens of vehicles and a nursery school were set on fire by youths during standoffs with police in an area of Paris where riots in 2005 drew global attention to the stark contrast between wealthy Paris and the suburbs that surround it.

As well as damaging the nursery school and a car sales outlet, youths had also used a shopping trolley full of petrol bombs, police said.

The trouble began in Aulnay-sous-Bois on Feb. 2 where four police officers were accused of using excessive force while arresting a 22-year-old man, including raping him with a baton.

"For the moment we're talking of very violent but isolated standoffs," said Luc Poignant from the SGP police union.

Handcuffs

Was Buffalo, NY mom Kiarre Harris jailed over homeschooling decision?

Kiarre Harris homeschool
Single mother Kiarre Harris started researching homeschooling last November. She says her two elementary school aged children weren't excelling at their failing Buffalo Public Schools.

"I felt that the district was failing my children and that's when I made the decision to homeschool," she said.

Harris says she filed documents at Buffalo City Hall, following all the steps, informing the district of her intent to homeschool her children. According to documents she provided to 7 Eyewitness News, they're dated December 7th and the district says it received her paperwork.