What happens when university students call on authority figures to censor students or staff at institutions of higher education? At Yale such students have been awarded prizes, at the University of Missouri they've been successful in forcing administrators to resign, at Claremont they were able to force their president to implement a long list of demands, and at Evergreen State College a throng of students were allowed to take control of the campus while harassed faculty sought refuge off-campus. At other colleges around America, and even on campuses in the U.K., Canada and Australia, university administrators have met illiberal student mobs with a parade of mealy-mouthed platitudes and prostrations. This pattern of weakness has been dismaying for all people who value academic freedom and open inquiry. This week, however, a line has been drawn by David Yager, President of Philadelphia's University of Arts (UArts). In response to students calling for the censorship of Camille Paglia-one of the most admired humanities scholars in the world-he articulated a full-throated defence of intellectual freedom, showing administrators of supposedly superior universities what real leadership looks like.

To understand what happened, one has to go back in time to 2016, the year when Camille Paglia recorded an interview with Ella Whelan of the British magazine Spiked. In this interview, Paglia criticised the transgender and feminist activist movements in her usual colourful and provocative style. She queried whether every single case of transgenderism was genuine, and drew attention to the victimhood that mainstream feminism is preoccupied with. While controversial, Paglia's comments reflected viewpoints shared by many people. Part of her popularity comes from saying what no-one else has the courage to say.

Yet it was only last week, after UArts student Joseph McAndrew-who identifies as "non-binary" and who stipulates their personal pronouns as they/their/them-began making posts on Facebook and Instagram, that a complaint against Paglia was made:

The EU has proposed tariffs on $20bn (£15bn) of US goods in a long-running dispute over Boeing aircraft subsidies. The proposal comes after the WTO said earlier this month that the US had failed to remove some Boeing subsidies.

The EU move comes after the US said it was considering tariffs on about $11bn (£8.4bn) worth of EU goods in response to Airbus subsidies. And it comes after the EU approved plans in April for trade talks with the US designed to reduce trade barriers.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said: "European companies must be able to compete on fair and equal terms.

"The recent WTO ruling on US subsidies for Boeing is important in this respect. We must continue to defend a level-playing field for our industry."

An Arizona couple is charged with luring a day laborer to their Phoenix home and forcing the man to have sex at gunpoint with the female suspect, an assault that the male suspect described as a "sexual fantasy scenario," according to a criminal complaint.

According to investigators, the victim was picked up last Monday outside a Home Depot by Brenda Acuna-Aguero, 39, who said that she needed help moving items at her home.

The victim told cops that when he reached the residence, Acuna-Aguero "began to talk sexual to him" and said it "was her fantasy to have sex with a laborer and that she wanted to have sex with him."

When the man declined to have sex, Acuna-Aguero's husband Jorge Murrieta-Valenzuela, 45, entered the room carrying a rifle. Murrieta-Valenzuela, cops charge, placed the firearm against the victim's chest and told him "that he was going to have sex with his wife or he would shoot him."

Prominent settler rabbi, Shlomo Aviner, ruled today (Tuesday) that burning churches outside of the Land of Yisrael "isn't our job for now", but as for the Holy Land, "the issue is more complicated". Aviner seemed to leave the question of burning churches in the Holy Land to the questioner.

Aviner, who draws a public salary as the rabbi of the major settlement Beit El and is also the rabbi of a prestigious yeshiva (Ateret Yerushaliam, formerly Ateret Cohanim), is considered to be one most important rabbis of the religious nationalist sector. He is a prolific writer, having published more than 200 books in several languages. Aviner is also considered a pioneer of the SHUT-SMS phenomenon, by which fans send the rabbi a question via SMS message (and more recently, Facebook Messenger and Whatsup), and Aviner gives back a short reply. Aviner is one of the more popular SHUT-SMS rabbis because he tends to answer every question, even trollish ones (I'm speaking from experience here).

Today, after the fire in Notre Dame Cathedral, Aviner was asked the following question:

"The great Christian Church in Paris is on fire. Should we feel sorry for that, or should we rejoice, as it [the cathedral] is idolatry, which is a mitzvah to burn?"

The questioner is here referring to the Halachic ruling that churches are considered idolatry, and should be destroyed.

Russia will soon become one of the world's 10 leading exporters of agricultural products in the near future, according to Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev.

"The current dynamics of foreign trade suggests that in the medium term Russia is able to enter the list of the world's top ten exporters of agricultural goods," he said, adding that the country is already among the top three major suppliers when it comes to some sectors.

According to the minister, Russian producers managed to expand into a number of strategically important markets in 2018. The surge was reportedly due to the growth of grain, fish, and meat exports.

"China, Morocco, Japan, Singapore, Serbia, and Turkey is not the full list of countries. Now we may export fish, honey, plant feed to Morocco; meat products - to Japan, Singapore, Turkey, and Kuwait," Patrushev said.

Ukraine's militaristic, far-right Azov movement and its various branches have used Facebook to promote its antidemocratic, ultranationalist messages and recruit new members since its inception at the start of the country's war against Russia-backed separatists five years ago.

The American social-networking giant has also been an important platform for Azov's global expansion and attempts to legitimize itself among likeminded American and European white nationalists.

Facebook has occasionally taken down pages and groups associated with Azov when they have been found to be in violation of its policies on hate speech and the depiction of violence.

The first Facebook removals occurred in 2015, Azov members told RFE/RL.

But after continuous, repeat violations Azov -- which includes many war veterans and militant members with openly neo-Nazi views who have been involved in attacks on LGBT activists, Romany encampments, and women's groups -- is now officially banned from having any presence on Facebook, the social network has confirmed to RFE/RL.

Despite the ban, however, which quietly came into force months ago, a defiant Azov and its members remain active on the social network under pseudonyms and name variations, underscoring the difficulty Facebook faces in combating extremism on a platform with some 2.32 billion monthly active users.

An Israeli court has upheld the deportation order against the local director of Human Rights Watch, accusing him of supporting the BDS movement by condoning Airbnb's decision to briefly take down Jewish listings in the West Bank.

Omar Shakir, a US citizen who has been working as the HRW regional director since October 2016, was ordered to leave Israel by the interior minister last year, after being accused of engaging in Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement activities.

A suspected death squad operating inside Kenya's police force is using Facebook to target and kill young men they believe to be gang members, residents of a poor and overcrowded area of the capital have told a public meeting.

"I have lost two husbands in one year," a tearful young woman, balancing a toddler on her side, told the crowded town hall meeting in Nairobi's Kayole residential estate last month.

Others came forward to the microphone to tell similar stories about losing young relatives aged between 15 and 24.

The state prosecutor, top police officers and human rights activists, who were also at the rare gathering, listened as community leaders explain how these youngsters, suspected to be criminals, were profiled within various Facebook groups by "gangster hunters".

"They profile them on Facebook, after one week or a month they shoot them, and put pictures of their dead bodies on Facebook," Wilfred Olal from the Dandora Community Justice Centre told the meeting.

Chaos in Libya following General Khalifa Haftar's offensive has increased the risk of terrorist presence on migrant boats headed for Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, adding the country's ports would remain closed.


"Islamic terrorist infiltration is no longer a risk, it has become a certainty: it is therefore my duty to reiterate that no docking will be allowed on Italian shores" he said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant League party, refused to say if Italy's stance could change in case of a full-fledged war in Libya after the flare-up in the cycle of anarchy gripping the country since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.

Military vehicles in the UK have been painted with a toxic, cancer-causing chemical as recently as last year.

Chromium VI has been linked to various cancers and was officially listed as hazardous by the EU in 2003 when it was banned in some manufacturing.

However, it was still being used to paint military vehicles in the UK as recently as December last year, The Times reported.

The Ministry of Defence said it has now stopped using paint containing the chemical as a Scottish MP said it was 'simply incredible' it hadn't stopped earlier.

It is unknown whether any military staff have had their health affected by the use of chromium VI, known chemically as hexavalent chromium.