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The Ark Project: 'Teen prostitutes back on streets because police won't give back bus', charity tells RT


RT
Mon, 21 May 2018 13:47 UTC
Bus seized
© The Ark Project / Facebook
The Ark Project charity bus, surrounded by police in Windsor as it was seized.
A charity bus seized by police is unable to help underage prostitutes living on the streets of Reading until police make up their mind over a licensing spat, anti-homelessness campaigners have told RT.

On Thursday, the bus belonging to Reading homelessness charity The Ark Project, was seized by Thames Valley Police and impounded amid claims that it was being driven with the incorrect license type. The bus had run into trouble the night before, when police threatened to tow the vehicle as it was considered an 'obstruction', parked across from the castle.

Thames Valley Police Inspector Gavin Biggs, the Roads Policing officer, was involved in the seizure of the bus. He confirmed that 'Lenny' the charity bus had been impounded on Thursday. "A commercial vehicle was seized from Windsor Town centre...It was being driven otherwise in accordance with a licence, a man was reported for the offence and the vehicle was removed".

On Friday, the charity hoped the bus would be returned to them after the royal wedding. Now, Ark Project CEO Michael Longsmith, said that police are refusing to release the bus until an expert can assess the vehicle. Longsmith said that, despite the charity working closely with police in the past with no issue, officials now need to assess what type of vehicle it is.
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Pistol

Denver police terrorize high school looking for an absent student

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 19 May 2018 13:51 UTC
cops in school
Community members are horrified after they say police officers conducted a classroom-to-classroom search with guns drawn and interrogated teachers and students in a charter school, all to look for a student who was absent. While the police department released a statement justifying the incident, teachers are claiming that police are lying "to save face."

"The staff and students were traumatized," Lucas Ketzer, principal at Rise Up Community School, told the Denver Post as he described the way a group of police officers raided the building in their search for a student who was not in attendance.

Officers stormed the school and began searching the classrooms, and Ketzer said that when a science teacher "told officers they could not search her room without a warrant" they pushed her aside, and entered the classroom where they "pulled students out of their chairs, removed their hats and asked them for their IDs as they searched."

"When I was sitting in class, they came bursting in, and then they were like in everybody's faces, like looking at us, and I felt so unsafe," student Mary Jimenez told Padres & Jóvenes Unidos. She said the officers singled one student out, grabbed him by the arm, and forced him to remove his hat so that they could compare him to the photo of the student they were targeting.
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Clipboard

Full stream ahead: Bulgaria wants natural gas pipeline directly from Russia


RT
Mon, 21 May 2018 11:46 UTC
Cape Kaliakra, Black Sea, Bulgaria
© Konrad Wothe / Global Look Press
Cape Kaliakra, Black Sea, Bulgaria.
Amid talk of European energy security and diversification of gas supplies, Bulgaria has proposed building another pipeline to get gas directly from Russia, according to President Rumen Radev.

The Balkan nation currently gets Russian natural gas by transit through Ukraine and other Gazprom customers in Europe. Last year, sales of the blue fuel to Bulgaria reached 3.3 billion cubic meters, 4.7 percent more than in 2016.

"As for the supplies from Russia, Bulgaria needs drop shipment of the gas through the Black Sea. Let's call it 'Bulgarian Stream'," Radev said in an interview with Russian business daily Kommersant.
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Stop

De Blasio orders NYPD to stop marijuana arrests ahead of 'likely' legalization


RT
Mon, 21 May 2018 12:22 UTC
Weed man
© Carlo Allegri / Reuters
A man known as the "Hemp Knight," who supports marijuana legalization, stands in Times Square in New York, 2015.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has reportedly ordered the NYPD not to arrest people for smoking marijuana in public ahead of outright legalization of the drug in the city. Currently, only medical marijuana is legal in NYC.

The mayor flagged the policy change on social media last week, but city hall aides told the media on Sunday that the order has been given to the NYPD.

The move will form part of a 30-day trial to address the racial disparity in arrests throughout the city designed to "overhaul and reform" drug enforcement policies. In addition, de Blasio will create a task force whose sole purpose is to prepare New York City for legalization in terms of public smoking, zoning regulations for dispensaries and public health campaigns.

De Blasio has long opposed decriminalizing marijuana but recognises that legalization seems inevitable, especially after successes elsewhere in the US. "With marijuana legalization likely to occur in our state in the near future, it is critical our city plans for the public safety, health and financial consequences involved," the NYC chief said in a statement, as cited by the New York Daily News.

Comment: See also: New York DAs announce refusal to prosecute marijuana arrests

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Info

The political 'nobility' in the US Congress

David Hawkings
Roll Call
Mon, 21 May 2018 12:02 UTC
Greg Pence
© Scott Olson/Getty Images
Greg Pence, Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, is seeking the Congressional seat once held by his younger brother, Vice President Mike Pence.
Saturday's wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is creating another surge of American royal mania, and with a particular twist - besotted chatter about their offspring someday running for Congress, or even president, while remaining in the line of succession to the British throne.

It's a fanciful notion, regardless of whether the Los Angeles actress retains dual citizenship after she passes her British citizenship test, because the Constitution prevents titled nobles from taking federal office.

But the larger point is this: The U.S. electorate remains as fascinated as ever with influential families on both sides of the Atlantic and, perhaps as a result, has only occasionally declined to expand the power of the clans that have sought to foster an American political royal lineage over the past two centuries. People named Adams, Harrison, Taft, Roosevelt, Rockefeller and, more recently, Kennedy or Bush have won far more elections than they've lost.
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Info

Syrian military seizes large amount of weapons and medical equipment in southern Damascus

Leith Aboufadel
Al Masdar News
Mon, 21 May 2018 11:33 UTC
Medical equipment
© SANA
The Syrian military police inside of the three southern Damascus towns of Babila, Beit Sahm, and Yalda uncovered another large cache of equipment left behind by the rebel forces.

The seized military equipment included telecommunication devices, mortar shells, mortar launchers, gas masks, grenades, et al.

As shown in the pictures released by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) below, the large cache of equipment was stored in a large warehouse in this part of southern Damascus:
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Heart - Black

Military psychologist arrested for sexually assaulting trauma patients using 'exposure therapy' excuse

John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 19 May 2018 09:18 UTC
soldier trauma
A psychologist working at Travis Air Force Base near Sacremento has been arrested for sexually assaulting his patients after multiple patients accused him of misconduct and claimed that they are now "even more traumatized" because of the abuse they endured at the hands of the man who was supposed to help them.

According to a report from CBS Sacremento, Dr. Heath Sommer was working with rape victims who were sexually assaulted while deployed in the military. But instead of helping them, he added to the abuse.

Sommer reportedly used "exposure therapy" as an excuse to victimize his patients under the pretense of an experimental treatment. Exposure therapy is a psychological treatment where people are forced to confront their fears or traumas, and while this technique has many great applications, sexual assault is obviously not one of them.

It was revealed that the abuse occurred between 2010 and 2016, but it is not clear how many victims there actually were. Sommer now faces charges of sexual battery, rape, and oral copulation, to which he pled not guilty earlier this week.
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Pistol

Santa Fe High School weapons policy states firearms and ammunition prohibited

AWR Hawkins
Breitbart
Fri, 18 May 2018 09:14 UTC
Santa Fe High School shooting
© Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP
The weapons policy of Santa Fe High School in Texas makes clear that no firearms, imitation firearms, BB guns, or ammunition is allowed on campus.

The Substitute Teacher Handbook says, "Employees, visitors, and students, including those with a license to carry a handgun, are prohibited from bringing firearms, illegal knives, or other weapons onto school premises or any grounds or building where a school-sponsored activity takes place."

Comment: In other words, it was a 'gun-free zone'.

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Che Guevara

Maduro easily wins another term as Venezuelan president after main opposition boycotts election - US livid


RT
Mon, 21 May 2018 09:00 UTC
maduro election venezuela
Nicolas Maduro has been declared the winner of Sunday's presidential election, which saw a 46.1 percent turnout, according to Venezuela's electoral council, after the opposition branded the vote a fraud and called for a boycott.

With 92.6 percent of the vote counted, Maduro has won presidential election with 5,823,728 of the votes, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena announced. His main adversary, Henri Falcon of the Progressive Advance party, obtained 1,820,552 votes; while the independent candidate Javier Bertucci won 925,042 votes.

"How much have they underestimated our revolutionary people, and how much have they underestimated me," Maduro told a late-night crowd in front of the presidential palace. "And here we are, victorious."


Comment: Like the US has room to talk about how democracy should be.

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Info

Crimea: Russian FSB shuts down extremist group created by MP's aide of the Ukrainian parliament


TASS
Mon, 21 May 2018 10:46 UTC
Russian FSB members
© Igor Zarembo / Sputnik
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has shut down the activity of an extremist group in Crimea that had been created by an aide to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada member of parliament, the FSB Center for Public Relations told TASS.

"The Federal Security Service and the Russian Interior Ministry have revealed the activity of an extremist group created by Erol Veliyev, aide to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada member of parliament [Mustafa] Dzhemilev, as ordered by [Refat] Chubarov, who is the leader of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, which is outlawed in Russia, and is on the wanted list, with support from the Ukrainian Security Service," the FSB Center for Public Relations reported.

Apart from Veliyev, former boxers Steshenko and Tretyakov are also members of the group that was formed in Kharkov, FSB reported. "The extremists planned to commit crimes based on political hatred with a goal to threaten the pro-Russian Crimean Tatars and stoke national tensions on the territory of the Republic of Crimea," the Center noted.
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