The biggest bank in Europe is in the process of imploding, and there are persistent rumors that the final collapse could happen sooner rather than later. Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know that this is a story that I have been following for years. Deutsche Bank is rapidly bleeding cash, they have been laying off thousands of workers, and the vultures have been circling as company executives desperately try to implement a turnaround plan. Unfortunately for Deutsche Bank, it may already be too late. And if Deutsche Bank goes down, it will be even more catastrophic for the global financial system than the collapse of Lehman Brothers was in 2008. Germany is the glue that is holding the EU together, and so if the bank that is right at the heart of Germany's financial system collapses, the dominoes will likely start falling very rapidly.

There has been a tremendous amount of speculation about Deutsche Bank over the past several days, and so let's start with what we know.

We know that Deutsche Bank has been losing money at a pace that is absolutely staggering...

Deutsche Bank reported a net loss that missed market expectations on Wednesday as a major restructuring plan continues to weigh on the German lender.

It reported a net loss of 832 million euros ($924 million) for the third quarter of 2019. Analysts were expecting a loss of 778 million euros, according to data from Refinitiv. It had reported a net profit of 229 million euros in the third quarter of 2018, but a loss of 3.15 billion euros in the second quarter of this year.

Are gay people allowed to meet and organise in defense of their interests? A hard yes, you might have thought. But some apparently disagree.

Witness the response to the London-based LGB Alliance, a newly created British group that asserts "the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people to define themselves as same-sex-attracted." The group's creation has sparked vitriol, not from the traditionalist Christians or social conservatives who might have opposed such groups in the 1980s or 1990s, but from the self-described progressive left.

Readers who aren't steeped in the most fashionable iteration of identity politics might now be scratching their heads. Unless you're taking cues from Leviticus, what could possibly be wrong with saying it's okay to be gay?

The answer is that, in acknowledging the reality of same-sex attraction, you are indirectly acknowledging the reality and importance of biological sex as a driver of attraction. You are also indirectly acknowledging that members of the opposite sex are not members of your dating pool — even if they tell you that they share your gender identity. Which means you have effectively pled guilty to that grave modern thoughtcrime, transphobia.

If you are not on Twitter, have not set foot on a college campus in the last few years, and don't read woke web sites such as Teen Vogue, where this sort of thing is taken very seriously, you may imagine that I am engaged in some kind of Swiftian send-up of identity politics gone amok. After all, just about every single person reading this knows quite well how sexual attraction works. But I am quite serious: Activist groups that brand themselves as mainstream representatives of the LGBT community not only preach the idea that true attraction is based on gender, they also have sought to de-platform and mob anyone within their ranks who points out that this idea is completely divorced from the way the human brain actually works. In this make-believe world, to be gay — in the way gay people actually experience being gay — is to be a transphobe.

Police failed to respond to complaints by women who said they were victimized by the operators of the Girls Do Porn website, made as far back as 2015. The owners of the adult website were charged with sex trafficking in October.

They were allegedly tricked into signing a contract, forced into prolonged and painful sex acts, then blackmailed with x-rated footage sent to relatives, but now it's emerged that the young women who were unlucky to choose the group behind Girls Do Porn as a beginning of their modeling career might have also been failed by the police.

Three women filed complaints about the men running the porn website four years ago, but police never followed up on them, The Appeal reported. One woman even alleged that she was raped by a man working for the website, but her case was closed on the very day that it was filed.

Should women unashamedly wear mustaches? Should men abandon their masculinity because it's 'toxic'? This is all just a smoke screen capitalist overlords use to hide real issues and stay in power, philosopher Slavoj Zizek believes.

In one of the latest anti-objectification messages, women's razor brand Billie ran an ad timed to Movember (the annual 'mustache month' event), proclaiming that "women have mustaches too" and should not be ashamed to grow them out. It looks like a step in the right direction of gender (identity) equality - but is in fact a drive fueled by the big corporations that do not want people to challenge the existing status quo in more substantial ways, world-renowned philosopher Zizek believes.

A court in Barcelona cleared five men of sexual assault charges on Thursday after saying the crime did not fit the legal definition of rape because the unconscious teenage victim didn't fight back.

Under Spanish law, a sexual attack can only be classified as an assault or rape if the perpetrator uses violence or intimidation. Because the 14-year-old victim was unconscious, the five were convicted of a lesser charge of sexual abuse.The case renewed pressure on the government to reform the law and specify that any sexual act without consent is an assault.The Barcelona court sentenced the five men to 10 to 12 years in prison, despite the prosecution arguing they should be charged with assault.

The attack happened at a party in Manresa, a town northwest of Barcelona, in 2016. The court heard that the group was partying in an abandoned factory, when the victim consumed "alcohol and drugs" and became unconscious.

Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg has decided not to take a bonus for 2019 after US lawmakers hammered him over compensation during Capitol Hill hearings last week in the wake of two 737 MAX plane crashes.

The new chairman of the aerospace company, David Calhoun, gave an enthusiastic vote of public confidence in Dennis Muilenburg on Tuesday, stating that he "has done everything right." He also revealed to CNBC that the embattled CEO himself suggested forgoing his compensation for this year, including bonuses.

"It came in two fronts: one, no short-, no long-term bonus, and three, no consideration for equity grants, until the MAX in its entirety is back in the air and flying safely," Calhoun said. It may take more than a year to return the plane to the skies, he suggested.

In December 2018, the Justice Department's inspector general dropped a bombshell: Investigators had "substantiated" allegations that a senior DOJ official was a repeat sexual harasser.

The official, who had retired by that point, harassed five women under his chain of command, the inspector general announced. One woman reported that she was not only harassed, but also sexually assaulted. Another woman reported that she was pressured into having sex to get a promotion.

Few details were available at the time. The inspector general's summary of the investigation was barely two pages. The official had worked in the Office of Justice Programs, an arm of the Justice Department that partners with federal, state, and local law enforcement, but he wasn't identified. The summary didn't specify what the women accused him of doing or the time period. Because the official had left the department, there wouldn't be any internal disciplinary process. No criminal charges were filed.

Nearly 10 months later, BuzzFeed News obtained a copy of the inspector general's full report. The 12-page document is redacted but includes a slew of new information, including detailed accounts from two of the women who described a pattern of escalating workplace harassment, as well as investigators' findings that the former official "lacked credibility" and provided "conflicting testimony."

California conservatives are leaving the state in droves over what the LA Times describes as their "disenchantment with deep-blue California's liberal political culture," not to mention "high taxes, lukewarm support for local law enforcement, and policies they believe have thrown open the doors to illegal immigration."

ust over half of California's registered voters have considered leaving the state, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. Republicans and conservative voters were nearly three times as likely as their Democratic or liberal counterparts to seriously have considered moving — 40% compared with 14%, the poll found. Conservatives mentioned taxes and California's political culture as a reason for leaving more frequently than they cited the state's soaring housing costs. -LA Times

Former Californians Richard and Judy Stark had no regrets as they left their Modesto home, towing a U-Haul trailer with their Volkswagen SUV 1,300 miles to Amarillo, Texas. After finding the website Conservative Move, the Starks put their home up for sale around six months ago and bought a newly constructed three-bedroom home in the suburb of McKinney for around $300,000. According to Stark, a similar home in California would cost around twice as much.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the United States is willing to help Mexico "wage WAR on the drug cartels" in the country, following the deaths of at least nine Americans, including six children, who reportedly came under attack in a highway ambush in a Mexican border state Monday.

"If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively," Trump wrote on Twitter. "The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!"

"This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!" Trump added.

Following months of national media coverage over the handling of illegal aliens in his custody, Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich has somewhat reversed a sanctuary policy he signed into law.

Elrich will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the ability to access certain areas of the Montgomery County jail in order to apprehend illegal aliens, according to ABC7 News. A county spokesman confirmed to the local news outlet on Nov. 1 that correctional officers have been ordered to give ICE agents clearance to "identified areas" of the jail to "ensure that transfers are conducted in a safe environment."

News of the cooperation between Montgomery County and federal immigration authorities comes three months after Elrich signed an executive order that prohibited county officials from working with ICE.