One former Panhandle prison employee said she filed a written complaint about a correctional officer's racist behavior, then came into work several days later to another officer dangling a noose made of toilet paper in front of her.

Another former employee said she walked in on a handcuffed inmate being beaten in the medical unit, surrounded by a group of officers. She was suspended one day after filing an incident report about it, and fired within two weeks.

Though both those employees are now gone, they aren't alone.

In interviews with the Times-Union, a dozen former and current employees at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution described a culture of abuse, bullying, racism and administrative cover-ups in the mental health dorms. Officers selected inmates they had problems with for unsanctioned forms of punishment: to include physical violence or withholding their food to the point where prisoners lost considerable weight, employees said.

"It frustrates us and makes us angry every time this happens and we report it and these officers are still there working," said Betty Young, a former activities technician. "They won't fire them because they're so short on staff, and they keep them."

Salacious details of pedophilia and sexual slavery were heard on Tuesday in a Brooklyn courtroom as the trial of NXIVM's former leader, Keith Raniere, got underway.

Mr. Raniere, 58, has been indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, identity theft, extortion, forced labor, money laundering, wire fraud and sex trafficking.

In recent weeks, five women who were charged as Mr. Raniere's co-defendants have pleaded guilty to various federal charges, leaving Mr. Raniere to stand trial alone. -New York Times

South Africans are calling it one of the most shocking cases of animal neglect they've ever seen-more than 100 lions and other animals found diseased, overcrowded, and, in some cases, near death in a captive-breeding facility in South Africa's North West province.

The situation came to light after an anonymous tipster reached out to a journalist who contacted the National Council for Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), which is responsible for enforcing South Africa's animal welfare legislation.

When NSPCA inspectors visited the facility, at Pienika Farm, they saw 27 lions afflicted with mange, a skin disease caused by parasitic mites. It was so severe that they'd lost almost all their fur. The inspectors reported that the animals were held in filthy, overcrowded enclosures, with more than 30 held in spaces meant for two. At least three cubs were suffering from a neurological condition called meningoencephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, that left them unable to walk. One was subsequently euthanized by a veterinarian at the facility.

"It's hard to describe because it leaves you feeling hollow, knowing that you've got the king of the jungle in conditions like that," says Douglas Wolhuter, manager of the NSPCA wildlife protection unit that inspected the farm. "It's soul-destroying."

Multiple reports about South Africa's captive lion industry have revealed that the animals are often kept in unsatisfactory living conditions.

Pienika Farm is owned by Jan Steinman, who is listed online as a council member of the South African Predator Association (SAPA). The organization favors captive breeding and asserts that hunting is "legitimate and ecologically responsible." It requires members to "maintain high ethical standards." The NSPCA has charged Steinman with violating South Africa's Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962, which could result in a fine of up to about $2,700 or one year in jail for each charge that leads to a conviction.

The Muslim American Society has come under fire after a clip reportedly emerged on a branch's Facebook account, showing kids wearing Palestinian scarves, dancing and reciting "we will chop off their heads" and "we will subject them to eternal torture".

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations has launched an investigation into an event at the Muslim American Society's local centre after a video, said to have been filmed during last month's "Ummah Day" celebration, surfaced online.

The clip shows children in Palestinian scarves dancing and lip-syncing to a revolutionary song, which is often used by Islamist groups, according to The Times of Israel. According to the organisation MEMRI, which spread the video, the lyrics mention calls to "reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones" and lines like "Flow, oh rivers of martyrs!"

A notorious guru self-helped himself to a bevy of sex slaves, subjecting them to "shame and humiliation," a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

Keith Raniere - the sex svengali of the NXIVM cult - held sway over the vulnerable women by threatening to expose their "deepest, darkest secrets."

The women either agreed to have sex with him or they would be exposed.

Prosecutor Tanya Hajjar presented opening statements at the sex-trafficking trial of Raniere in New York City.

"The defendant pretended to be a guru," Hajjar said, "but he was a criminal."

The prosecution laid out a sordid indictment against Raniere who ensnared Smallville star Allison Mack, a Bronfman heiresses and a bevy of other starlets.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi was a young woman who attended a madrassa in the rural town of Feni in Bangladesh. In late March of this year, she attended the local police station to report a crime. Nusrat alleged that the headmaster at her madrassa had called her into his office several days before and sexually assaulted her. After the assault, Nusrat told her family what had happened and decided to make a report to the police, no doubt trusting that they would treat her with some decency. The officer who took her statement did no such thing. He videotaped it on his camera phone and can be heard on the footage telling her that the assault was "not a big deal." The headmaster was arrested, but someone within the police leaked the fact that Nusrat had made allegations against him and the footage of her statement ended up on social media. She was soon receiving threats from students at the madrassa as well as other people in the community. Influential local politicians expressed their support for the headmaster and crowds gathered in the streets of Feni demanding his release. Defiant, Nusrat insisted on going into the madrassa to sit her exams, but while there she was tricked into going up onto the roof of the building with a fellow female student. She was then set upon by a group of people who tried to persuade her to withdraw her allegations. When she refused, they doused her with kerosene and set her alight. Some of the men arrested have since told police that the attack had been planned and ordered by the headmaster from prison. Nusrat survived long enough to describe what had happened, but died in hospital on 10th April. She was 19.

It's difficult to imagine a more tragic example of the terrible dangers that women can face in speaking out about sexual violence, nor the lengths that some people will go to in order to protect perpetrators from exposure. In Bangladesh there has been a huge response to Nusrat's murder. Tens of thousands of people attended her funeral prayers, and there have been protests in the capital Dhaka. Bangladeshi feminists have used the case to draw attention to the high rates of sexual abuse in the country and the mistreatment of victims by police.


The news has recently started filtering through to the Western media, but thus far prominent feminists have been noticeably silent. At the time of writing, there has been no mention of Nusrat's murder in the major third wave feminist websites Jezebel, Feministing, and Everyday Feminism. Notably, the radical feminist platform Feminist Current has reported on the case-this is the site edited by Canadian journalist Meghan Murphy, considered so reprehensible by Twitter that she has been banned. Although there have been reports on the murder in the international sections of most newspapers, Nusrat's name has not appeared on the comment pages of any of the major Left-leaning anglophone newspapers: the New York Times, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, the Independent, or the Sydney Morning Herald.

A Biman Airlines' Bombardier Dash-8 aircraft has skidded off the runway at Myanmar's Yangon International Airport, losing its wings and breaking into three parts. Pilots were attempting to land as the accident occurred.

Although conflicting reports exist, a Biman Airlines spokesman told Bangladeshi news site BDnews that four of the 33 people on board were injured, including the pilot.

Photos shared on social media show the extent of the wreck.

Cecilie Fjellhoy thought she had met her prince charming when she matched on Tinder with Simon Leviev.

Fjellhoy, a 29-year-old Norwegian masters student living in London, said she was swept off her feet on their first date, which included a private plane ride to Bulgaria. Fjellhoy said Leviev told her he was an Israeli millionaire who called himself the "Prince of Diamonds."

"I was texting my friends at the same time like in a group chat just like, 'I don't know what's going on,'" she said.

But what began as a storybook romance turned into a real-life nightmare, Fjellhoy said - one that sent her into debt and fearing for her safety. It's a cautionary tale in the dangers of online dating.

"I hate him, he's so horrible," she said. "I am just tired of crying about this you know? It's just so painful. I just hate myself that I did this."

International media freedom watchdogs said they were "appalled" by the recent brutal attack on Ukrainian journalist Vadym Komarov and urged the country's authorities to do their utmost to ensure that it does not go unpunished.

In a statement on May 7, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that Ukrainian authorities "should leave no stone unturned" in identifying the motive of the attack on Komarov and bringing the assailants to justice.

Gulnoza Said, CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said that her organization was "appalled by the brutal assault," which she said comes amid "a range of threats faced by investigative reporters in Ukraine."

Canada's federal government is likely to announce in mid-June that it would be proceeding with the controversial expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline designed to double the pipeline flow out of Alberta to the west coast in British Columbia, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing officials familiar with the issue.

Justin Trudeau's federal cabinet will meet to discuss the Trans Mountain expansion on June 18 and is expected to take the decision on that day, officials tell Bloomberg, noting that "it's possible but unlikely" that the government extends again the decision deadline in order to allow more time for consultations with stakeholders.

While Alberta and its leaders have been advocating for the pipeline expansion, British Columbia has been strongly opposing the project, which is now owned by the federal government of Canada. The fierce opposition in British Columbia has forced Kinder Morgan to reconsider its commitment to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline, and to sell the project to the Canadian government in August 2018.