Society's ChildS


Passport

Specifying sex is not discrimination: 'Gender-X' passports get rejected by the UK High Court

EU passport
© Britta Pedersen/ Global Look Press
The UK High Court has rejected a bid to introduce gender-neutral passports. The litigant had suggested that asking passport holders to specify their gender is "inherently discriminatory."

Christie Elan-Cane, who has been campaigning with the backing of Human Rights Watch for so-called "gender-X" passports since 1995, said: "I am bitterly disappointed that my case for the judicial review of the UK government's discriminatory passport policy was not upheld - not just for myself but for everyone who is compromised by this policy.

"I was not seeking special treatment. I was seeking to be treated as a human being," she said, the BBC reports.

Justice Baker rejected claims that the current policy, which requires putting 'male' or 'female' on passports, is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

"At present I am not satisfied, for the reasons which I have set out, that the current policy of HM Passport Office is unlawful," the judge said.

Arrow Up

OPEC agreeing to ramp up production is a win-win deal for Russia & Saudi Arabia

oil rig worker
© Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters
OPEC and non-member allies led by Russia have agreed to raise oil production by a million barrels per day. It can be regarded as a victory for Saudi Arabia and Russia, which had pushed to boost output to alleviate high prices.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told reporters in Vienna that an agreement had been reached for a "nominal" production increase of one million barrels per day (bpd). In reality, production will rise only by 700,000 bpd as some OPEC members are unable to boost production at the moment.

Oil prices rose following the news, with Brent crude trading at $74.69 per barrel (+$1.65), while the US West Texas Intermediate gained almost $2, trading at $67.53.

Handcuffs

Biker gang member arrested for firing anti-tank missile at an office building in Amsterdam

Scene of anti- tank missile attack.
© Dutch policeScene of anti- tank missile attack.
A motorcycle gang member has been arrested after an anti-tank missile was fired at an office building which houses a magazine publisher in Amsterdam.

The weapon was launched at approximately 11pm local time Thursday, shattering a window in the building. No-one was injured in the attack, according to police, who said the suspect had cut through surveillance cameras before launching the missile, reports Dutch News.nl.

Eyewitnesses reported hearing an enormous bang at the site. The rocket launcher was later recovered by police from the scene and removed for forensic tests.

The premises in the Dutch capital's Sloterdijk business district is a multi-tenant building and includes media company Pijper Media, which publishes magazines including Nieuwe Revu, Playboy, Marie Claire and Panorama.

Red Flag

Off his rocker: Tom Arnold calls for stalking the children of Trump Jr., Kushner and Murdoch over immigration policy

Barron and Trump
© JIM WATSON / AFPBarron Trump (L) looks on as his father US President Donald Trump (R) speaks during the pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey Drumstick in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 21, 2017.
Tom Arnold, actor and ex-husband of Roseanne Barr, came under fire after he suggested protesting the Trump administration's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy by stalking and harassing the children of the first family and allies.

Arnold, who was married to Barr from 1990-1994, has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of the controversial policy of separating illegal immigrants from their children at the US border. However, instead of directing his wrath toward actual decision-makers, Arnold told his Twitter followers that targeting their kids would be more efficient.

"Next is protesting Baron's private school as well as James & Lachlan Murdoch's kids. This is what I can do to end the abuse of these children. We're going to make you uncomfortable," Arnold tweeted on Tuesday.

Comment: These Hollywood liberals are really giving us all a glimpse into how warped their minds are.
Sick! Peter Fonda calls for Trump's son to be put 'in a cage with pedophiles' - Secret Service on alert

Arnold next went on CNN and gave this car crash interview:




Camcorder

LAPD releases 'heavily-edited' bodycam footage of suspect who died after police standoff

LAPD standoff
© Los Angeles Police Department / YouTubeAn image from the LAPD video of the incident involving Jose Chavez.
Police in Los Angeles have been accused of 'heavily editing' bodycam footage showing the arrest of a man who later died in custody.

Luis Carrillo, the attorney for the family of Jose Chavez, hit out at the LAPD's video and called for the department to release an unedited version along with a complete autopsy report detailing Chavez's injuries. "[The footage is] highly produced, heavily edited, and slanted in favor of the LAPD, and still leaves many questions unanswered," he said in a statement cited by Associated Press.

The video, which is introduced by the department's spokesman Josh Rubenstein, and Commander Alan Hamilton, the chief of the unit that investigates police use of force, shows edited bodycam footage of LAPD officers responding to a complaint of a suspected prowler in the Newton area of the city on May 6.

TV

ABC to announce spinoff of 'Roseanne' without Barr after show's star booted for racist tweet

Roseanne Barr
© Chris Pizzello / ReutersRoseanne Barr takes off her sunglasses for photographers at the 6th Annual TV Land Awards in Santa Monica, California, June 8, 2008.
Bittersweet news for 'Roseanne' fans - the show is coming back but without Roseanne Barr. The spinoff series was announced about three weeks after ABC axed the iconic comedienne and television star over a racist tweet.

The new show, with a working title 'The Conners,' will premier in fall 2018. The show will center on the family as it "grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America," the network said in a news release. "Roseanne Barr will have no financial or creative involvement in the new series," ABC said.

Marijuana

Highly suspicious: Cannabis uncovered at offices of Japanese lawmakers

Cannabis
© Jaime Saldarriaga / Reuters
Japan may have some of the toughest drug laws in the world, but that hasn't stopped marijuana plants from finding their way into an office building used by the country's lawmakers.

Four plants of the illegal weed were spotted by a visitor to the premises used by officials from the country's upper house of parliament on Thursday. A pair of officials from Tokyo's Metropolitan Government were then dispatched to the building to remove the crop.

Books

White students lag behind because they lack immigrant families' 'drive,' Ofsted chief says

Students
© Stefano Guidi/ Global Look Press
White working-class children in disadvantaged communities are failing to perform as well as their ethnic-minority classmates because they lack the "drive" of immigrant families to succeed, the Ofsted chief has said.

Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of the education watchdog, hit back at claims that Ofsted's inspectorate gave lower ratings to schools in lower-class communities with a majority of white pupils.

Recent Ofsted figures show that only four percent of secondary schools with a majority of white pupils received an "outstanding" grade, while almost half got Ofsted's lowest two ratings. By contrast, 29 percent of schools where ethnic minorities were more prevalent were rated as outstanding, while fewer than one-in-five were inadequate.

"We can't pretend that Ofsted judgments are not lower in certain areas - many of them with a high proportion of white working-class children. But that shouldn't surprise us," Spielman said in her keynote address at the Festival of Education on Thursday.

Handcuffs

Kentucky man who threatened on Twitter to kill Donald Trump gets indicted

Andrew Ryan Long
A crazed Kentucky man, Andrew Long Ryan, 37, of Tennessee, was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with two counts of making threats against the President. What made the threats even more viable was the fact that is he was a former police officer. He is currently in federal custody.

This story goes to show you to ALWAYS report these people when you come into contact with them, not just in person, but on social media as well.
"I will kill Donald Trump if you don't follow my leaders lead." Twitter Post -Andrew Long Ryan
It was a Twitter post that read, "I will kill Donald Trump if you don't follow my leaders lead" and a Facebook post that read "Death is Coming" that helped tip off the Secret Service and start the investigation into this potentially unstable individual.

Comment: Maybe Peter Fonda is next?


USA

New report finds white deaths outnumber births in most US states

nurse and old man
© Joe Raedle / AFP
Deaths now outnumber births among white people in more than half the states in the US, according to a new report, raising questions about how long the country's whites will remain a majority of the population.

A report published by the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that whites are dying faster than they are being born in 26 states, up from 17 states only two years earlier. The sudden spike in the death-to-birth ratio for whites across the country seems to challenge conservative-sounding projections made by the Census Bureau, which has estimated that whites could drop below 50 percent of the population around 2045.

The startling figures were likely exacerbated by plummeting fertility rates after the 2008 financial crisis, coupled with rising mortality rates for whites driven in part by drug overdoses, the report said.

The results of the report - which examined the period from 1999 to 2016 using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the federal agency that tracks births and deaths - have surprised even its authors.

Comment: See also: