A journalist who uncovered the tragic suicide of a disabled man linked to the government's fitness for work tests has been blacklisted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over his investigations.Editor of Disability News Service (DNS) John Pring, who uncovered a direct link between a mentally ill man's suicide and the government's austerity cuts, says that the DWP is no longer responding to his questions.Set up in April 2009, DNS examines sensitive issues that impact disabled people's lives, such as discrimination, independent living, benefits, poverty and human rights.

Pring had spent months gathering evidence to prove a coroner had blamed British man Michael O'Sullivan's suicide on the government's work capability assessments.O'Sullivan, who suffered from chronic anxiety and depression, took his own life in 2013 after being judged "fit for work" by the DWP.At the time of his death, he had been taking anti-depressants, was engaging in talk therapy and was also allegedly liaising with an employment support officer.

Coronor Mary Hassell, who presided over the case, wrote in a report submitted to the DWP that the "trigger" for his death was the assessment that he was fit to work."The anxiety and depression were long-term problems, but the intense anxiety that triggered his suicide was caused by his recent assessment by the DWP as being fit for work, and his view of the likely consequences of that," her verdict stated.

The DWP later responded to the coroner's concerns in a document marked "OFFICIAL - SENSITIVE," conceding O'Sullivan's case should have been dealt with differently.

Pring has reported widely on problems with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith's Universal Credit scheme. He also uncovered a secret DWP investigation of more than 60 deaths of benefit claimants since 2012. The full findings of this investigation, including 30 recommendations for reforms, are yet to be made public.

Finland's government condemned a racist protest in which demonstrators — including one dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit — attacked a bus transporting asylum seekers in the early hours of Friday.

Public broadcaster Yle showed images of around 40 protesters — some with burning torches — throwing fireworks at a bus which was transporting asylum seekers, mostly families with children, to a new reception centre in the southern city of Lahti.

One of the protesters could be seen dressed in a white hood, a symbol of the racist American Ku Klux Klan, with a Finnish flag in his hand.

They also threw stones at Red Cross volunteers, although no one was hurt at the incident.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila condemned the attack on Twitter, saying "threats and violence against asylum seekers and migrants are absolutely unacceptable."

"Finland's government condemns last night's racist protests against the asylum seekers who have come to the country. Violence and threatening behaviour is always indefensible," a government statement said.

The police held two protesters after the incident and said they were likely to face fines. "The protesters were young people from Lahti... At this point we have no indication that they would be somehow organised," chief inspector Martti Hirvonen told the Finnish news agency STT.

Another incident took place late Thursday in Kouvola, in south-eastern Finland, when a 50-year-old man was arrested after throwing a petrol bomb at an emergency housing facility for asylum seekers. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was hurt.


In recent weeks Finland has seen an unprecedented influx of mostly Iraqi asylum seekers, which has forced the authorities to quickly set up new reception centres around the country.

Via Agence France-Presse

They are known as "frequent fliers": a small population battling substance abuse, severe mental illness and homelessness that cycles regularly and quickly through New York City jails for mostly nonviolent offenses.

The 800 people with the most jail stays from November 2008 through 2013 accounted for 18,713 incarcerations through December 2014 at a cost of $129 million, according to a study by city officials published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

At least one person was jailed 66 times during the six-year period, the study's data show.

In 88.7% of these detentions, the top charges were misdemeanors. Petit larceny and possession of trace amounts of drugs accounted for more than half of the top charges. Less than 1.2% of the top charges were violent crimes such as murder, rape and felony assault.

Four people have been killed and many are suffering from critical injuries after a crash between a charter bus and an amphibious "Ride the Ducks" tour vehicle in Seattle, Washington, fire officials told local media.

Fire officials added that 12 people are in critical condition and another 20 suffered from non-life-threatening injuries. More than 44 patients were transferred to Harborview Medical Center and other hosptials, the Seattle Fire Department said in a statement.

All four of the people who died were international students at North Seattle College.

Everyone involved has been removed from the vehicles, the Fire Department stated on Twitter.

It's currently unclear how the accident over the Aurora Avenue Bridge occurred. Two passenger vehicles were also involved in the incident and the bridge has been shut down for an investigation.

Onboard the charter bus were multiple foreign students, according to the Associated Press, and officials were working to contact the necessary consulates.

Meanwhile, there is no information to be shared yet regarding the "duck boat," a vehicle that doubles as a boat and an on-road bus. The tour company involved, called Ride the Ducks, offers tours of Seattle featuring loud music and guides who quack through megaphones.

"It was devastating," said Ride the Ducks President Brian Tracey. "All I care about is the safety of the passengers and the people who were injured on the duck."

The French animal rights group, Cause Animal Nord, has come under fire after a video emerged of the activists taking away a puppy from a crying homeless man in central Paris.

The video shows the man fighting for his dog, but eventually losing out as three members of the group, including the organization's president, seized the puppy and ran away. The homeless man was left in tears.

Later today, Stewart Parnell, former CEO of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) could find out that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. If convicted, Parnell could be the first person involved in a food poisoning outbreak to ever receive such a harsh sentence.

Parnell was convicted on September 19, 2014, of knowingly shipping peanut butter contaminated with salmonella from a PCA plant in Blakely, Georgia, to Kellogg's and other customers who put the ingredient in everything from crackers to pet food.

Former employees reported filthy conditions at the Georgia plant, where investigators found disgusting and unsanitary conditions at the plant, including the presence of roaches, rodents, mold, and a leaking roof near the production area. ^{[1] [2]}

People across parts of Delmarva are talking about a loud boom heard Tuesday night.

"What I heard sounded like a 50-foot-tree dropping on the ground and everything shook and just a big boom," said Krista Shannon of Pocomoke City.

"We just heard, like you said, a big boom," said George Milbert of Crisfield. "Like a, you know, like a echo and I assumed at the time it was um, a jet but its very rare that jets do that at night."

In the past those loud booms have been a result of jets breaking the sound barrier.

WBOC reached out to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River to try and find out if what people heard was, in fact, a sonic boom. However, officials said there were no flights in the area at the time.

NASA Wallops Flight Facility officials said they are also trying to figure out what caused the noise near Chincoteague.

New York City photographer said she was stopped and questioned by police about her T-shirt, which had Arabic writing printed on it, as she walked her dog past the 9/11 Memorial.

Miru Kim said she initially thought the officers were concerned about her dog, which had been barking at another dog — but they instead pointed to her shirt Wednesday afternoon and asked her about the message on it, reported Gothamist.

Over a million liters of a cyanide solution leaked from Barrick Gold's Veladero mine in Argentina's western San Juan province - nearly five times more than previously reported. Meanwhile, a judge has lifted a ban on pumping toxic substances at the site.

The Toronto-headquartered mining company initially said it had spilled just 224,000 liters of the toxic liquid into the Potrerillos River. By comparison, an Olympic-sized swimming pool holds 2.5 million liters.

The leak happened when a valve failed and a sliding gate was left open on September 12 at around 8pm local time. Because of the gate problem, the cyanide solution passed through all the emergency pools and into the river.

The solution is used to filtrate gold from processed rocks, which is a fairly common method employed for extracting gold.

On Wednesday police responded to a 9-1-1 call about a man in a wheelchair who was allegedly suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Upon arriving on the scene, police officers immediately escalated the situation and within seconds the man was killed, according to witnesses.

The victim, 28-year-old Jeremy McDole was repeatedly told by police to "show your hands," but he did not immediately respond. The first officer fired a single shot at him with a shotgun and appeared to strike McDole in the chest.

From what we can see in the video, it does not appear that McDole was pointing a weapon at officers. He was merely moving his hands back and forth when police let loose on him a second time, unleashing a frenzy of gunfire.

According to eye-witnesses and family members on the scene, McDole did not have a weapon. However, in a statement from police, they claimed to have found a .38 caliber pistol by his side after he was killed.