Up to seven people were injured when a car plowed into a crowd in the eastern part Helsinki, Finland's capital. Police say that nothing indicates the incident was intentional, however.

No one was killed in the collision, but at least three people were taken to hospitals in critical condition, Finnish media report, citing police sources. At the same time, Helsinki's rescue services department said that two women and one man were seriously injured, while another man received light injuries, Finnish M TV Channel reports.

Cigarettes, disease and now pornography are to be considered public health hazards if a Virginia state delegate gets his way. A resolution declaring porn to be an "epidemic" is sounding the alarm for more to be done to thwart the "harm" done by sex films.

State Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Prince William) compares his resolution to the 1964 declaration made by the US surgeon general, which reported the links between cigarettes and disease.

"Before smoking was identified as a problem, at least the recognition that it led to certain pathologies was a starting point to put restrictions on it," Marshall said on Thursday, according to the Washington Post. "If you recognize it as a problem, then you're going to try to find ways to solve it within the framework of the statutes we can pass and the institutions we have."

Marshall's House Joint Resolution 549 (HJ549) is not proposing any sort of ban or restrictions, only for "education, prevention, research, and policy change at the community and societal level in order to address the pornography epidemic that is harming the people of the Commonwealth and the nation."

A doctor is before criminal courts in France accused of dozens of counts of rape. The former general practitioner allegedly filmed his patients for nearly a decade. Some of his victims were minors when the alleged incidents took place.

Thierry Dassas, who worked in the small village of Argent-sur-Sauldre in the Centre-Val de Loire region, was arrested in late 2014 after an 18-year-old woman made a complaint to police, which led to a wider investigation.

Investigators seized dozens of videos, prompting a judge to launch a call for other victims to come forward. A total of 37 patients filed complaints for incidents between 2005 and 2014.

The number-one killer of American troops is not Daesh, but suicide, according to the latest Pentagon data.

US Operation Inherent Resolve, the Pentagon's codename for its anti-Daesh initiative, has resulted in 31 fatalities as of December 27. While eight lives have been lost at the hands of Daesh terrorists in actual combat, 11 soldiers have committed suicide. Seven others died from accidents, four more from illness or injury, and one fatality is still under investigation.

While experts have struggled to pinpoint the root cause of the rampant suicides, suicide rates for US veterans back home have shot up 32.2 percent since 2001, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA).

According to VA data, an estimated 20 veterans ended their lives each day In 2014. Two-thirds of the deaths were caused by firearms. Meanwhile, the suicide risk for veterans is 21 percent higher than it is for civilians.

A huge blaze has engulfed what is reported to be an apartment complex under construction in western Las Vegas, fire rescue services and witnesses on social media have reported.

The fire is located near Rochelle Avenue and Hualapai Way, KTNV report.

Some nine units are battling the two-alarm fire, the local Fire and Rescue Department said on Twitter.

University of Kansas students are being offered buttons through the school's library system meant to make their preferred gender pronouns clear.

Various University of Kansas Libraries employees now sport the square-shaped pins, with extra ones also doled out to interested students, the Lawrence Journal-World reports.

Library leaders say the buttons are part of the library system's "You Belong Here" marketing effort meant to lure undergraduates and ensure that they feel welcome, including transgender students.

A California Republican claims Democratic-backed legislation aimed at protecting underage sex workers actually pushes minors into prostitution.

"Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right," Assemblyman Travis Allen, whose district covers parts of Orange County, wrote Thursday in the conservative D.C. publication the Washington Examiner.

Allen's attack on the "terribly destructive legislation" has lit up social media — but the intention of the law is not as alarming as he suggests, its supporters say.

Senate Bill 1322, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in September, goes into effect on Sunday.

"So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution," Allen wrote.

Dear Readers,

The end of 2016 is approaching, and if you've been following SOTT closely, you'll know that this has been a year full of surprises! The world keeps changing, and us with it. The planet has been speaking loud and clear, as you can see in our monthly weather videos, and the sociopolitical stage had some surprises in store.

This year could be described as a year of division and polarization. From the US elections, to the debate over "progressive liberal ideologies", people seem to be making a choice, for better or for worse. Some are aligning themselves with the increasingly blatant lies peddled by the mainstream media and the pathological governments of our world, and some have taken a stand against those lies and are reaching a point where they finally see that there is something terribly wrong with the version of reality with which they are presented. More than minorities vs. majorities of all kinds, that is perhaps the biggest division: the choice between aligning oneself with lies or truth. We think that many of our readers have naturally chosen the latter, and we hope that that knowledge will always protect you.

The recent fraudulent "Fake News Furor" emphasizes this Truth vs. Lies factor; indeed, SOTT.NET was defamed by The Washington Post along with many other respectable Alt News sites, some not so respectable, and some of dubious origins. As our attorney wrote in a demand for retraction letter,

...SOTT is one of the accused organizations in a PropOrNot report referenced by the Post, which, contrary to Fake News' claim that the report had not been published, was available on the Internet well before Fake News ran. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SOTT's tax returns are publicly available and transparent, such that allegations of Russian government support due would have been known as false given even casual inquiry by your publication. ...

Your identification of SOTT as a "fake news site" and as an agent for Russian propaganda designed to undermine American democracy is defamatory per se. You accuse SOTT of spreading "Russian-backed phony news to outcompete traditional news organizations for audience." These serious allegations have caused and will continue to cause great harm to SOTT, including but not limited to damage to policy impact and reputation, diversion of scarce reporting and managerial resources to respond to concerned inquires and debunk this smear, loss of readers, and damage to the site's financial sustainability. Moreover, writers and editors associated with SOTT face ridicule, emotional distress, loss of reputation, and risk to future career advancement, including for example, difficulty passing background and security checks. ...

Your article did not provide even a single example of "fake news" allegedly distributed or promoted by SOTT or indeed any of the other 200-plus sites on the PropOrNot blacklist....

As our readers know, and as emphasized by our attorney above, SOTT.NET is TOTALLY reader supported and anyone can view our non-profit tax returns to verify this claim. We don't carry ANY paid advertising and we are beholden to no one except YOU, the reader, and our consciences (something that seems to be seriously in want at MSM news sites.) Obviously, we may have a legal battle ahead of us and that means we need your support more than ever as we sail into these turbulent waters of attempts to totally stifle free speech. With your help, we won't go down without a fight!

We should also tell you that those of us here at SOTT who daily monitor the news in order to bring together the most complete picture of the "State of the Planet" often find it difficult to keep going in the face of the apparent lack of hope in spite of the confidence that some have in the abilities of Donald Trump to get the USA back on course. We are painfully aware of the struggle that must take place in order to right the wrongs and set things back on a positive footing; we are also aware that it will have to be a decision of the masses, not just 10% or 20% or 48% of the people. And that is why it is so important to continue to share knowledge. As conditions across all spheres of life continue to degrade, there will inevitably be more pain and suffering. With that, there will be more and more people who, having believed the chaos would never enter their lives, find that this is not the case: chaos is coming everywhere; and that makes it ever more important that we continue to fire the lighthouse for as long as we can.

Saying goodbye to the year 2016, we'd like to tell you a little bit about our accomplishments, since you may not be aware of them all. We have reason to be proud of our stamina and perseverance, and much more reason to be thankful for you, our readers and supporters, who make it all possible because, frankly, if we did not receive so many messages of thanks and support, we would have no hope either! There is always much more we can do, but this year, just as we thought our plates were too full, thanks to our readers' support, and the impetus from many new volunteers around the world, we did even more!

It's one of the most secretive and powerful organizations you've probably never heard of; the Bilderberg Group. With virtually no mainstream corporate media coverage of the event, the ultra-exclusive events take place in the open as the world remains uninformed. In fact, many people still believe that the Bilderberg Group is a conspiracy theory — in spite of many of the world's elite admitting to attending as well as the group publicly listing their event.

Nearly 130 politicians, financiers, and industrialists attended this year's conference, with the guest list including the chief of the International Monetary Fund, as well as the former heads of the CIA and MI6. What was once considered among the world's most secretive meetings, the Bilderberg Meeting, has been held annually since 1954. Until recent decades, the actual existence of the meetings had been generally disregarded by the mainstream media as nothing more than a fringe "conspiracy theory."

Richard Pan will always live in infamy after pushing through SB277. Pan used the Disney Measles "outbreak" as a way to herd the media and vaccine proponents into a frenzy, easily turning the state of California into a mandatory vaccine haven.

Well, now he's back up to his old tricks and he may well be topping his last performance with this new bill, which could stifle parental rights as a whole.

This was written today on Reason.com's blog.

The bill was introduced this month by Richard Pan, the pediatrician and state senator who sponsored the 2015 law that eliminated "personal belief" exemptions from state immunization requirements for children enrolled in school or day care. Critics of the new bill, who seem to consist largely of alternative medicine advocates, portray it as a threat to parental authority, gun rights, homeschooling, and health freedom. Snopes rejects those claims, noting that the critics have a grudge against Pan and that the bill does not give state officials any new authority to interfere with child rearing. Although Snopes is right on both points, Pan's seemingly anodyne bill does reflect some creepy and insidious moral premises.

As far I can tell, Pan's seven-point list of rights—which among other things declares that "all children and youth" have a right to "appropriate, quality health care," to "social and emotional well-being," to "appropriate, quality education and life skills leading to self-sufficiency in adulthood," and to "opportunities to attain optimal cognitive, physical, and social development"—would have no immediate practical effect. It builds on a 2009 concurrent resolution that likewise did not create any new programs, authorize any new spending, or give state or local officials any new powers.