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'Peace through sports': South Korea to propose joint 2032 Olympics bid with North

Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics
© Brian Snyder / Reuters
Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics
South Korea is considering a joint 2032 Olympic bid with its northern neighbors in an attempt to maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Do Jong-Hwan said that co-hosting the summer Olympics with the North would help to ease tensions and promote peace in the region, which has been at the center of tensions due to Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"I plan to make this proposal [to jointly bid for the Games] to the North for the settlement of peace," Do said on Wednesday during a business trip to Tokyo. "Seoul and Pyongyang would co-host the games," he added.

People 2

Parkland father puts MSNBC reporter in his place who says Trump is not a 'consoler-in-chief'

Andrew Pollack

Geoff Bennett (R) and Andrew Pollack (L) w/ Trump
While covering Trump's 9/11 speech in Pennsylvania, MSNBC reporter Geoff Bennett said the president does not have the "DNA" to be a "consoler-in-chief."

But one father, who met with Trump privately after losing his daughter in the Parkland school shooting, tells a very different story about the president.

The reporter had just watched Trump's address at the 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and was commenting on a photo of the president doing a "double fist pump gesture" while meeting supporters.

Heart - Black

U2 singer Bono mocks Sweden Democrats at Paris concert

bono
© Screen grab/YouTube
The US singer Bono used a photo filter to transform his appearance.
The Irish rock frontman Bono mocked the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats as Nazis from stage in Paris on the night of Sweden's elections.

In the guise of Macphisto, a sort of Irish version of the Faustian devil Mephisto, the rockstar twice performed a Nazi salute as he barked out "Åkesson!", the surname of the Sweden Democrats' leader Jimmie Åkesson.

"He's done so well in the election today," the devil character then drawled. "I love elections. I love balloons. I love... parties that get out of hand."

"It appears the Swedes are beginning to discover their Aryan Potential. Oh yes!" he said.

Henrik Gustafsson, the Sweden Democrat's press chief, said he was not surprised at the attack.

"When Swedish celebrities obviously do not have a reality-based view of us and our party, it's no wonder to me that the situation is even worse for a person like Bono," he said.

Macphisto was one of three characters Bono conceived for the band's Zoo TV tour back in 1992, and then used to make satirical statement and prank shows to local politicians, employing an exaggerated upper-class English accent.

In Paris on Sunday, Macphisto also had a dig at the Swedes in general.

"I'm just back from Sweden. I didn't know how much I liked the Swedish," he says. "Tall, blonde, blue-eyed... boring. He then waved his hand in front of his mouth in an exaggerated yawn.

Comment: Paul Joseph Watson

"Bono (net worth $700 million) dresses up as the devil to insult working class Swedish and French people who voted for change."


Cupcake Pink

Taking candy from a baby: Russian lawmaker wants to ban children from buying sweets to fight childhood obesity

Girls at Craft Fair on Revolution Square in Mosow
© Ruslan Krivobok / Sputnik
Girls at Craft Fair on Revolution Square in Moscow
A Russian lawmaker has proposed fighting child obesity with radical measures - banning the sale of candy to children under 14 and marking foods which have a high sugar content with graphic warnings, similar to cigarettes.

"Children know no measure in their love of sweet foods: when they have pocket money they often spend all of it at once, and not on oats and milk, but real poison in an attractive and beautiful packaging," MP Vitaly Milonov (United Russia) wrote in his letter to Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

"When a child finishes the third chocolate bar in the street, there is no strict teacher or caring parent around to explain that such diet is extremely harmful for the growing body," the lawmaker added.

Red Flag

Study finds more than half of trans male teens attempt suicide

upset
© Shutterstock
A new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows an alarmingly high rate of suicide attempts among transgender teens, particularly trans boys.

Nearly 14 percent of all adolescents in the study, "Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior," based on data from "Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors" survey from the Search Institute, reported they had attempted suicide. But 51 percent of transgender males reported at least one attempt, the highest percentage of any gender identity group. The second highest was among nonbinary teens, nearly 42 percent.

Among transgender females, about 30 percent reported a suicide attempt. The rate was 28 percent for questioning teens, nearly 18 percent for cisgender females, and 10 percent for cisgender males. Data came from more than 120,000 adolescents, age 11 to 19, over three years, June 2012 to May 2015.

Magnify

Woman suing Michigan State over alleged Larry Nassar rape and university cover-up in 1992

larry nassar
© Rebecca Cook / Reuters 8
California resident Erika Davis is suing Michigan State University (MSU), claiming that she became pregnant after disgraced doctor Larry Nassar raped her in 1992 and that university officials covered up the incident.

According to a lawsuit filed on Monday, Davis, who was a 17-year-old field hockey player at the time of the alleged incident, sought medical treatment for a knee injury when Nassar drugged and raped her, videotaping the assault which she said led to her pregnancy. She said she later had a miscarriage, which she claimed was covered up by George Perles who was athletic director in 1992.

Davis stated that Perles intervened after her coach complained about the incident, forcing campus police not to investigate it.

"While the protocols and procedures mentioned in this lawsuit do not reflect how sexual assault claims are handled at MSU, we are taking the allegations very seriously and looking into the situation," Michigan State spokeswoman Emily Guerrant said Tuesday.

Question

National Solar Observatory in New Mexico shuts over mysterious 'security issue'

National Solar Observatory
© National Solar Observatory
The mysterious and sudden closure of the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico is sending alien hunters into a frenzy as the facility remains shut without explanation.

The research institute in Sunspot was evacuated last Thursday along with a nearby United States Postal Service office for unexplained 'security reasons.'

A spokesperson for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) which manages the observatory said the evacuation was a precautionary measure due to a security issue. "It was our decision to evacuate the facility," spokeswoman Shari Lifson added.

A statement made by the Otero County Sheriff, Benny House, to Alamogordo Daily News in the aftermath of the announcement has contributed to intense speculation around the incident, however. House said that they were asked to standby but given no further information.

Arrow Down

Worse than the dot-com crash? Cryptocurrencies plunge 80%

crypto bubble
The Great Crypto Crash of 2018 looks more and more like one for the record books.

As virtual currencies plumbed new depths on Wednesday, the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index extended its collapse from a January high to 80 percent. The tumble has now surpassed the Nasdaq Composite Index's 78 percent peak-to-trough decline after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

Like their predecessors during the Internet-stock boom almost two decades ago, cryptocurrency investors who bet big on a seemingly revolutionary technology are suffering a painful reality check, particularly those in many secondary tokens, so-called alt-coins.

Book 2

Former Trump aides speak out on Woodward book: 'Selective and misleading'

Gary Cohn Rob Porter
© Alex Brandon/Associated Press
Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, left, and former White House staff secretary Rob Porter are two of the ex-administration officials to have attacked the credibility of Bob Woodward's incendiary new book on the Trump White House.
Rob Porter, Gary Cohn and Chris Christie are accusing the veteran journalist of creating a misleading portrait of the West Wing.

Three of President Donald Trump's former top aides and advisers attacked Bob Woodward on Tuesday, accusing the veteran journalist of misquoting them in his new book Fear and falsely portraying the Trump White House as chaotic and dangerous.

On the day of the best-selling book's official release, former White House staff secretary Rob Porter released a statement claiming Woodward presented a "selective and often misleading portrait" of the administration. Former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn and former Trump transition official Chris Christie also slammed the book, which has roiled the West Wing.

Porter, who departed the administration in February after his ex-wives leveled allegations of domestic abuse against the influential West Wing aide, took particular issue with reports in Woodward's book that Cohn and other senior White House officials removed documents from the Resolute Desk without Trump's knowledge.

Comment:


Rainbow

More Yale freshmen identify as LGBTQ than conservative

Gay Yale
© yale.edu
A Yale Daily News survey of freshmen students at that university found that more students of the class of 2022 identify on the LGBTQ spectrum than as conservative, and that queer freshmen even outnumber other sizable demographics in the class, such as Protestants and Catholics.

The paper's survey, the results of which are composed of 864 respondents, or just over one-half of the freshman class, found that only nine percent of respondents identified as "somewhat conservative," with one percent identifying as "very conservative." LGBTQ respondents, on the other hand, greatly outnumberd conservatives in total: According to the survey, "nearly 5 percent [of respondents] identify as gay and just over 9 percent as bisexual or transsexual. Three percent opted not to answer, and the remaining 8 percent identified as asexual, ace spectrum or questioning their sexual orientation."

This combined demographic outnumbers even Protestants and Catholics, whom the survey identified as 16 percent and 15 percent of the incoming class, respectively.