A California judge on Wednesday said he was likely to dismiss criminal pimping charges against the chief executive and controlling shareholders of Backpage.com, ruling that a federal immunity shield for tech companies protected them from prosecution for content posted by third parties.

Backpage, the second-largest U.S. online classified ad service after Craigslist, has faced scrutiny from the U.S. Senate as well as civil lawsuits over allegations that the site facilitates sex trafficking, especially of children.

The controversy over Backpage.com is at the center of a debate over how much liability tech companies should face for user-generated content posted on their platforms.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris last month brought criminal charges against Carl Ferrer, the Backpage CEO, along with shareholders Michael Lacey and James Larkin. However, the defendants argued that the ads on Backpage were posted by third parties and that the state offered no evidence that the defendants knew ads placed by escort services were solicitations for sex.

Under the federal Communications Decency Act, the defendants argued that they could not be prosecuted for content posted by third parties.

Ahmed Khan Rahimi has been officially charged with federal terror charges for his alleged role in planting bombs in New Jersey's Seaside Heights and New York City's Chelsea neighborhood. As a result, 31 people were injured.

Rahimi, 28, is accused of planting bombs on September 17 that injured 31 people. In addition, he is facing five charges concerning use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing a place of public use, destroying property by means of fire or explosive, attempted destruction of property by means of fire or explosive, interstate transportation and receipt of explosives and two counts of using a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Chaos in the Wake of the Ban

Here is a link to Part 1, about what happened in the first two days after India's government made Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 (~$15) banknotes illegal. They can now only be converted to Rs 100 (~$1.50) or lower denomination notes, at bank branches or post offices. Banks were closed the first day after the decision.

What follows is the crux of what has happened over the subsequent four days.

Today India is on the verge of a major social-political crisis, unless either the government backs off from the decision of banning the currency or some real magic happens. There is chaos in the streets and daily life is slowly but surely coming to a full halt.

What Modi did was not only heavy-handed, hugely arrogant, and of no value, it has been very badly implemented to boot — as everything in India always is — and carries the real potential of escalating and snowballing into something horrific. They could have seen that this was not going to end well by simply using primary school math.

Modi, Nationalism, and the Public School-Indoctrinated Middle Class

India today is like a cult under the influence of Narendra Modi — in which unlike in the past, not the poorest or uneducated citizens, but mostly members of the so-called educated middle class participate. Over the last two decades, people have been exposed to mass education, TV and nationalistic propaganda without being taught an iota of critical thinking skills.

In a society in which the concept of reason does not exist, this has made these people receptive to any kind of propaganda with a nationalistic or Hindutva bent. (Hindutva = fanatical Hinduism, which is rapidly metastasizing).

To aggrandize his position, Modi ordered a lot of military-hardware that India cannot afford, escalated tensions with Pakistan, and conducted what was very likely a fake surgical strike inside Pakistan. This united Indians under the flag.

Now, the demonetization of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes was tagged with nationalism, anti-corruption, and anti-terrorism. Simple-minded, slogan-susceptible persons were hardwired to accept an erroneous causality. Those who did not go along were made to be afraid of being called pro-terrorist elements.

Those in the middle class have taken what they deem to be the higher moral ground, for they have mostly avoided suffering from the demonetization. Lacking moral instincts — which is unfortunately the case with much of Indian society, given its deep-rooted irrationality and superstitions — they cannot see or feel the pain of those who are suffering, even if that suffering stares into their faces.

But events are in motion that will likely very soon lead to these salaried members of the middle class starting to feel the pain as well. Their instinctive trust in Modi is likely within weeks of coming crashing down, not because of reasoned argument, but because they will be facing similar problems as the ones the common man is now facing.

BBC heads have dismissed claims that a £289 million ($361 million) expansion of the broadcaster's World Service into eleven new languages, including a content intended for North Korean, is propaganda.

Fran Unsworth, BBC World Service director, admitted that the expansion - the biggest since the 1940s - is an expression of British soft power, while emphasizing the broadcaster's independence.

"If soft power is about how you express Western values, fairness, rule of law, then the World Service is an expression of those values," Unsworth was cited as saying by the Financial Times.

"But we are not there to support British foreign policy objectives."

The plans, which are part of a broader strategy to expand the BBC's reach from 348 million viewers and listeners to 500 million by 2022, also include an expansion of its Russian, Arabic and African services.

In 2016, the fundamentally undemocratic U.S. two-party system presented the public with the two most hated candidates in history. The choice was so dismal that over forty three percent of the voters could not bring themselves to go to the polls. Everyone hated one or the other of the candidates, or both. Whoever won was bound to face vehement opposition.

The unexpected shock of Donald Trump's victory created mass hysteria, with crowds in tears going into the streets to protest - an unprecedented reaction to an uncontested election.

This hysterical opposition is not the best basis for building the new movement needed to oppose a widely rejected political establishment.

On Wednesday, after Donald Trump won the election, a group of white high schoolers in York, Pennsylvania, celebrated the Republican's victory by marching through the halls of their school chanting "white power" while brandishing a Trump campaign sign. One hispanic student even claims that her fellow minority classmates were spit on as the hate procession passed again during lunchtime.

This wasn't the first time we've seen racially-driven bullying in schools related to the 2016 election. It's been an ongoing trend, and one that shows no signs of abating in the days following the election.

During the second presidential debate, in October, Hillary Clinton addressed the rising tensions in American schools. "Children listen to what is being said," she said as she stood next to a grimacing Trump. "And there's a lot of fear. Bullying is up. A lot of people are feeling uneasy." She called this phenomenon the "Trump effect," and the term has stuck thanks to the link between the increasing anxiety and harassment among minority children and the president-elect's campaign rhetoric, which was filled with hate—from his calls to ban all Muslim immigration to his generalization that all Mexican immigrants are rapists.

A 14-year-old Alabama boy is on the brink of death after spending two years in "forced isolation." His adoptive parents severely malnourished him to the point that he weighed only 55 pounds, leading neighbors to believe he was less than 10 years old.

The teen was admitted to an Alabama children's hospital on Sunday, his physical shape shocking doctors. Brought by his adoptive parents, Richard and Cynthia Kelly, ages 56 and 47, the boy was in critical condition, diagnosed with chronic malnourishment, dehydration, acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia and hypothyroid.

"The child remains gravely ill at this time and faces a long, difficult recovery and uncertain prognosis,'' Helena police chief Pete Folmar told reporters Tuesday. He described the teenager as "challenged in some way."

Police started looking into the boy's case after the hospital reported admitting the boy Sunday.

The president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Sir Craig Reedie, has said he is pleased with Russia's work in the struggle against doping.

Speaking at a General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Doha, Reedie said: "I believe that it is especially important, that the current work which is carried out by WADA with the authorities in Russia, aimed at working with RUSADA and solve the problem of anti-doping.

"An independent public anti-doping commission has been set up in Russia under the auspices of [Russian senior member of the International Olympic Committee] Vitali Smirnov. WADA employed two independent experts, who have already been working in Moscow for a couple of months in an attempt to rebuild RUSADA, so that it fully works in harmony with the demands of WADA, working with federal and international federations. We believe, that it is a positive step forward," he added.

People didn't believe the nonsense that the media were politically neutral

These latest figures on how American voters viewed the media during the election period should come as no surprise.

The Media Research Center (MRC) announced its findings of a new post-election poll on what voters thought about the news media's influence on the 2016 US presidential race.

The MRC/YouGov poll was conducted on November 9 and 10.

Key findings:

- 7 in 10 (69%) voters do not believe the news media are honest and truthful.

- 8 in 10 (78%) of voters believe the news coverage of the presidential campaign was biased, with nearly a 3-to-1 majority believing the media were for Clinton (59%) vs. for Trump (21%).

- Even 1/3 (32%) of Clinton voters believe the media was "pro-Clinton."

- 8% of Trump voters said they would have voted for Clinton if they had believed what the media were saying about Trump.

- 97% of voters said they did not let the media's bias influence their vote.

Maybe the media's bias for Hillary pi$$ed people off, and thus spurred on voters to pull the lever for Trump.

A police officer in Minnesota who shot and killed Philando Castile, during a routine traffic stop, was charged with second-degree manslaughter. Castille's girlfriend went on Facebook Live following the incident.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi made the announcement during a Wednesday morning press conference that officer Jeronimo Yanez will face three charges for shooting and killing Philando Castile on July 6.

Choi said he concluded that "use of deadly force by Officer Yanez was not justified."

Castile, who hailed from Falcon Heights, Minnesota, succumbed to his wounds at Hennepin County Medical Center on July 6, where he was taken after being shot by a traffic police officer. Castile was driving with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, when they were pulled over for a broken tail light.

The officer, who stood by the driver's window with his gun ready, panicked and shot Castile in the chest several times. Reynolds' four-year-old daughter was in the backseat of the car.