There's been public outcry on social media after hundreds of children with cancer and their parents - holding a pre-cleared candlelight vigil to raise awareness of childhood cancer - were told to exit Lafayette Square outside the White House on Saturday.

The US Secret Service and Park Police barricaded the park for at least two hours based on security concerns, according to The Washington Post, disrupting an event - for which organizers had obtained a proper permit to hold - called "A Night of Golden Lights," during which participants would hold electric candles.

Attendees of the two-day event known as CureFest for Childhood Cancer told the Post that some police officers and Secret Service agents on the scene said the closure occurred because President Barack Obama had left the White House from an area near the square in order to attend the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual gala several blocks from the White House, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Shelley and Simon Saxton-Cooper died when a huge gas explosion tore through their house, causing a major fire
The cause of an explosion and fire which killed husband and wife Simon and Shelley Saxton-Cooper in Derbyshire is being treated as suspicious, Derbyshire Police said today.

Forensic teams are working to piece together the cause of the explosion and fire in which the man and woman, named locally as Simon Saxton-Cooper, 50, and his wife Shelley, 45, died on Sunday.

Police said they are now treating the incident in Riddings, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, as suspicious and Mrs Saxton-Cooper's death as murder after examinatiions revealed she had been wounded before the explosion.

Detectives said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.

Chief Superintendent Sunita Gamblin, of Derbyshire Police, said: "Although we haven't made formal identifications of the man and woman who died, we believe they are Shelley and Simon Saxton-Cooper.

"We believe that Shelley was wounded before the explosion and fire and we are treating her death as murder.

"We're still unable to say how either she or her husband died as post mortem examinations haven't been completed.

"Police, crime scene investigators and fire investigation specialists are working through the scene of the fire to find out exactly how it started and what happened.

"We don't believe, at this time, that anyone else is involved."

The Danish late night talk show "Natholdet" ("The Night Shift") has posted a suggested trailer of a new board game entitled the "Refugee Game", which has at least one hard copy. It challenges the players to block migrants as they attempt to enter "happy little Denmark"; and left the audience at a loss: how do you respond to such a teaser?

The trailer features a family of four, two adults and two children, playing the game, trying to block what apparently look like Middle Eastern refugees from entering into their country.

NBC 2 News is reporting a new "partnership" between the Erie County Department of Social Services and New York public schools that would place a Child Protective Services (CPS) employee in the Erie County local suburban schools several days per week.

The media unsurprisingly reports this as a way to give school staff faster access to child welfare "expertise" and also "streamlining and expediting" the CPS investigation process. That is, the news is being spun to get parents - who are now seemingly potential criminals up for investigation - to accept this new, intrusive development while your child remains a ward of the State for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Ukraine's security chief and former acting president Oleksandr Turchynov benefited from Ukraine's latest sanctions list by creating a monopoly for a gambling company linked to his family.

Ukrainian Security and Defense Council chief Oleksandr Turchynov used Ukraine's latest sanctions to benefit an associate of his family, Ukrainian media outlet Insider found.

Among the sanctioned Russian organizations, mostly banks and airlines, are two companies incorporated in Ukraine that are engaged in Ukraine's national lottery business. A total of three companies operate lottery businesses in Ukraine, with the two Russian-owned organizations controlling 95 percent of the market in 2013.

In the last few years, FBI has been dramatically expanding its biometrics programs, whether by adding face recognition to its vast Next Generation Identification (NGI) database or pushing out mobile biometrics capabilities for "time-critical situations" through its Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC). But two new developments—both introduced with next to no media attention—will impact far more every-day Americans than anything the FBI has done on biometrics in the past.

FBI Combines Civil And Criminal Fingerprints Into One Fully Searchable Database

Being a job seeker isn't a crime. But the FBI has made a big change in how it deals with fingerprints that might make it seem that way. For the first time, fingerprints and biographical information sent to the FBI for a background check will be stored and searched right along with fingerprints taken for criminal purposes.

A commissioner for the city of Berkeley, California was fired for supporting a resolution calling on the city to consider divesting from corporations that operate in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.

Cheryl Davila served on the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission (HWCAC) for over seven years, where she oversaw numerous human rights resolutions. In the summer of 2014, Commissioner Davila recalled being awestruck at the violence of Israel's war on Gaza, code-named Operation Protective Edge, in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, the majority of whom were civilians, including more than 500 children.

"The Israeli bombardment was a disgraceful human rights violation that has caused a severe social welfare crisis, particularly for children, women, and the elderly in Gaza," Commissioner Davila said. Numerous human rights groups and the UN accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians and committing war crimes. "Given that Berkeley was one of the first municipalities to pass an anti-apartheid resolution in support of South African human rights, it is time for Berkeley to do the same for Palestinians who are living under an Apartheid regime," she explained. "We cannot be silent any longer."

The city of Berkeley has already approved ethical investment policies that call for divestment from fossil fuel corporations, gun manufacturers, tobacco companies, "oppressive states," and the nuclear industry.

Commissioner Davila decided to propose a measure on behalf of Palestinian human rights. She authored the resolution "Conflict in Israel's Impact on the City of Berkeley." The measure calls for the city to "examine the feasibility of divesting all City of Berkeley direct holdings in companies complicit in on-going violations of human rights and International Law under Israel's military occupation of Palestinian territories."

The resolution also recommends sending a letter from the City of Berkeley to the Board of Directors of California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), "urging them to implement their existing responsible investment policies equitably and to divest all holdings in companies complicit in on-going violations of human rights and International Law under Israel's military occupation of Palestinian territories." Its final request is to add Israel's illegal occupation to Berkeley's Oppressive States Business Policy.

Commissioners are not themselves elected; City Council members appoint commissioners to serve on the various commissions. Commissioner positions are unpaid and filled on a volunteer basis. At a commission meeting on the evening of September 16, Davila was informed that she had been fired by Council Member Darryl Moore for refusing to withdraw the resolution.

In the current historical moment in the United States, the emptying out of language is nourished by the assault on the civic imagination. One example of this can be found in the rise of Donald Trump on the political scene. Donald Trump's popular appeal speaks to not just the boldness of what he says and the shock it provokes, but the inability to respond to shock with informed judgement rather than titillation. Marie Luise Knott is right in noting that "We live our lives with the help of the concepts we form of the world. They enable an author to make the transition from shock to observation to finally creating space for action—for writing and speaking. Just as laws guarantee a public space for political action, conceptual thought ensures the existence of the four walls within which judgment operates."[1]The concepts that now guide our understanding of American society are dominated by a corporate induced linguistic and authoritarian model that brings ruin to language, politics and democracy itself.

Missing from the commentaries by most of the mainstream media regarding the current rise of Trumpism is any historical context that would offer a critical account of the ideological and political disorder plaguing American society—personified by Trump's popularity. A resurrection of historical memory in this moment could provide important lessons regarding the present crisis, particularly the long tradition of racism, white supremacy, exceptionalism, war mongering, and the extended wars on youth, women, and immigrants.

Calling Trump a fascist is not enough. What is necessary are analyses in which the seeds of totalitarianism are made visible in Trump's discourse and policy measures. One example can be found in Steve Weissman's commentary on Trump in which he draws a relationship between Trump's casual racism and the rapidly growing neo-fascist movements across Europe that "are growing strong by hating others for their skin color, religious origin, or immigrant status."[2] Few journalists have acknowledged the presence of white militia and white supremacists groups at his rallies and almost none have acknowledged the chanting of "white power" at some of his political gatherings, which would surely signal not only Trump's connections to a racist past but also to the formative Nazi culture that gave rise to the endgame of genocide.[3]

Controversial evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has prompted mass backlash after taking to Twitter to criticize the motives of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texan arrested on suspicion of making a bomb.

Mohamed was arrested last week after a teacher mistook the Muslim teen's homemade clock for a bomb. As news of the controversy spread, many, including US President Barack Obama and top NASA scientists, rushed to defend the schoolboy. Critics accused school staff and local police of Islamophobia.

Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins however was not impressed the story.

"Assembling clock from bought components is fine. Taking clock out of its case to make it look as if he built it is not fine. Which is true?" Dawkins tweeted on Sunday. "Yes, there are other reasons why a boy might take a clock out of its casing and pretend he'd made it. Trying to impress teachers, for instance. If the reassembled components did something more than the original clock, that's creative. If not, it looks like hoax."

Dawkins also posted a link to a YouTube video in which someone argues that the clock was simply reassembled from components and that Mohamed brought it to school in order to provoke a reaction.

Popular communications application Skype went down across the world on Monday. Numerous users are currently complaining on social media that they are not able to sign in.

"We're a bit overloaded right now...Please try again later, or download Skype to use it anytime," Skype wrote on its website.

"Affected users will not be able to change their status, their contacts will all show as offline and they will be unable to start Skype calls to them." However, they added that instant messages "are still being delivered as usual. The status issue also doesn't affect Skype for Web, which can be used to make calls and send instant messages."