The Seattle Times recently reported that an epidemic of hate crimes is taking place in the Emerald City. According to the newspaper, more than 500 bias incidents were reported to Seattle police in 2018 alone, and this figure represents "an increase of nearly 400 percent since 2012." However, this widely circulated claim is, at the very least, misleading. An examination of the Seattle data indicates that fewer than 40 actual criminal cases resulting from real, serious hate incidents were successfully prosecuted between 2012 and 2017. This provides an excellent case study of how media coverage of flash-point issues such as hate crime can — whether intentionally or not — sensationalize and exaggerate the urgency of social problems.

In the Times piece, headlined "Reported Hate Crimes and Incidents up Nearly 400% in Seattle Since 2012," reporter Daniel Beekman suggests that the problem continues to get worse, estimating that since 2017 alone, hate cases have jumped 25 percent. He also reports that "community organizations say hate crimes are a serious issue," and cites sources claiming that "more support from the city" is needed to battle hate crime. Beekman's tone is relatively measured. But others have delivered more alarmist takes, creating fear that minority residents may be swept up in an "epidemic" of hate.

A look through the data that has been made available from Seattle's office of the City Auditor reveals that there is little basis for panic. First, most of the situations contained in the 500-plus documented incidents for 2018 turned out not to be hate crimes at all. Out of 521 confrontations or other incidents reported to the police at some point during the year, 181 (35 percent) were deemed insufficiently serious to qualify as crimes of any kind. Another 215 (41 percent) turned out to involve some minor element of bias (i.e., an ethnic slur used during a fight), but did not rise to the definition of hate crime. Only 125, or 24 percent, qualified as potential hate crimes — i.e., alleged "criminal incidents directly motivated by bias." For purposes of comparison: There are 745,000 people living in Seattle, and 3.5-million in the metro area.

Only €38 million of the promised €850 million have been received so far for the reconstruction of the fire-damaged Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the city's Catholic archbishop of Michel Aupetit has said.

This is less than five percent of the amount promised.

Aupetit told Radio France Internationale he remains confident that more money will be forthcoming. "It always takes time to get money from the big contributors," he said.

It's been nearly three months since a fire devastated the iconic 800-year-old cathedral, with France's richest families having promised to donate hundreds of millions of euros to reconstruct the landmark.

Authorities recovered a jet ski over the weekend bearing the same registration number as the one an American couple was riding before they went missing in Barbados last month.

French Navy officers found the missing jet ski hundreds of miles away in Guadeloupe on Saturday, nearly two weeks after Magdalena Devil and Oscar Suarez, of New Jersey, vanished at sea, authorities said.

There were no signs of the missing couple.

The pair disappeared on June 24 after renting after a jet ski at Holetown Beach on the western coast of Barbados, authorities said.

Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein's arrest on fresh sex trafficking charges has ignited a media war, with outlets on each side of the spectrum rushing to tie their political opponents to the notorious pedophile.

Having already served 13 months in an 'open-door' prison for abusing scores of underage girls after striking a non-prosecution agreement in 2007, Epstein was arrested in New York on Saturday evening. Facing one count of sex trafficking of minors and another of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, the 66-year-old could serve up to 45 years behind bars if convicted.

The sealed indictment reportedly details a litany of molestation, abuse, and trafficking of dozens of girls, some as young as 14.

A rich and connected man, Epstein rubbed shoulders with presidents, business moguls, Hollywood stars, and even British royalty. In the wake of his arrest, partisan media outlets jumped at the chance to tie their opponents to the disgraced billionaire.

Dena Churchill admitted to professional misconduct after N.S. College of Chiropractors investigation launched.

A former Halifax-based chiropractor has been ordered to pay her regulator $100,000 as part of a settlement agreement on charges of professional misconduct related to her sharing anti-vaccination views online.

In a decision released publicly Thursday, a hearing committee of the Nova Scotia College of Chiropractors took into consideration Dena Churchill's "dire financial circumstances" and gave her 10 years to pay the money. But it also said if she has not paid at least $30,000 by Jan. 2, 2022, the full amount becomes due immediately.

"Dr. Churchill's conduct brought the profession of chiropractic into disrepute," the hearing committee writes in its decision.

Outspoken Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez congratulated the US women's football team on their World Cup victory by calling for the players to be paid double the men's rate.

A penalty from Megan Rapinoe followed by a goal from Rose Lavelle saw the US women's team beat the Netherlands on Sunday to take home their fourth Women's World Cup trophy.

No sooner had the match ended than USA Today journalist Nancy Armour reported fans chanting "Equal pay!," a reference to the ongoing gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the team against the US Soccer Federation, claiming they are paid 38 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn.

"At this point we shouldn't even be asking for equal pay," Ocasio-Cortez chimed in, possibly joking. "We should demand they be paid at least twice as much."

Six Arizona police officers were asked by a barista to leave a Starbucks on the 4th of July because a customer "did not feel safe."

The Tempe police officers stopped by the store for coffee, had already paid for their drinks and were standing around together when a barista approached.

She said they were making a customer feel unsafe and asked them to move out of the customer's sight or leave. The officers were disappointed but chose to leave, according to the Tempe Officers Association.

"While the barista was polite, making such a request at all was offensive," the association wrote in a Facebook post. "Unfortunately, such treatment has become all too common in 2019.

The association also made another post with an image of a hand pouring out a coffee cup along with the words "Dump Starbucks," which later became a trending hashtag on social media.

Even doctors couldn't hold back tears after a seven-year-old girl with countless bruises, burns and bites all over her body, was delivered to them. The child had been allegedly tortured for months by her own aunt.

Footage from a medical examination at a hospital in the southern Republic of Ingushetia has shocked Russia after being uploaded online earlier this week. "This is a phlycten [internal abscess]; look, this is a bite and those are scars - old and new ones. This hand is cold, it could be amputated," one of the doctors says in the clip. "It's like a horror movie," his colleague added off-screen, commenting on the terrible state of their young patient.

Aisha was brought to hospital by her aunt, who claimed that the child was injured after falling into a cesspit a week before that. She also explained that the girl had also sustained burns earlier on, from accidentally sitting on a hot pot cooking soup.

Three Florida deputies were charged on Wednesday after video showed a teenager being punched and slammed to the ground during a brutal arrest outside of a McDonald's.

Officers Gregory LaCerra, 51, and Christopher Krickovich, 29, with the Broward County Sheriff's Office were charged for allegedly beating and pepper spraying a 15-year-old boy during an arrest in April and falsifying documents in the aftermath, according to a charging affidavit.

Both officers were charged with battery, falsifying records and conspiracy to falsify records when describing the circumstances of the teen's arrest, the affidavit said.

A third officer, 49-year-old Ralph Mackey, was also charged with falsifying records and conspiracy, according to the affidavit. They were each suspended without pay in the wake of the incident.

Several California police departments have stopped using "predictive policing" software but not because they want to protect your basic human rights and dignity. The reason the software won't be used is that it isn't effective enough...yet.

Several police departments were disappointed that they won't be able to punish thought crimes. Palo Alto police spokeswoman Janine De la Vega told the Los Angeles Times: "We didn't get any value out of it," after using the software for three years. As for Mountain View, California's police department, which spent over $60,000 of taxpayer money on the software that was designed to violate the rights of the taxpayers stolen from to fund it, it was dubbed a "disappointment." The police department used the software for over five years before dropping the program last June. Rio Rancho, New Mexico Police Captain Andrew Rodriguez said: "It wasn't telling us anything we didn't know."

The software is a bold violation of the basic human right to free thought and those who use it are nothing more than freedom-trampling tyrants. The Los Angeles Police Department took an authoritarian leap in 2010 when it became one of the first to employ data technology and information about past crimes to predict future unlawful activity. The software is called PredPol, and is known as the "predictive policing tool" developed by a University of California at Los Angeles professor and the Los Angeles Police Department.