Campus Reform Update: After publication of this article, University of Maryland-College Park changed the name of the group to "Anti-Racism and Ally Building Group," along with a shorter description, which reads, "Do you want to improve your ability to relate to and connect with people different from yourself? Do you want to become a better ally? Members will support and share feedback with each other as they learn more about themselves and how they can fit into a diverse world."

In a statement provided to Campus Reform on Friday, the university explained the name change: "Our Counseling Center acknowledges that we did not choose the right words in raising awareness about this research-based initiative, and how this group has been perceived is counter to the values of inclusiveness and diversity that we embody. Therefore, we are renaming the group to better reflect our intention and values."

Over 22,000 Taiwanese have applied for residence permits on the Chinese mainland, according to Beijing. Speaking to Sputnik, Jiang Dongliu, an analyst at the Charhar Foundation, explained what was behind Beijing's initiative to stretch out a hand to the Taiwanese and why Taipei is up in arms about this.

It will be harder now for Taipei to convince the Taiwanese of China's hostile attitude toward them after Beijing granted the inhabitants of the island nation an "equal status" vis-à-vis mainlanders, Jiang Dongliu, an analyst at the Charhar Foundation, told Sputnik China.

On September 13, An Fengshan, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, announced that over 22,000 Taiwan residents had requested residence permits in the Chinese mainland.

"The purpose of issuing residence permits for Taiwanese civilians is to facilitate their education, work and life on the mainland," Jiang explained. "This is an important step aimed at sharing development opportunities with compatriots from Taiwan, giving them an 'equal status.'"

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson traded insults in an interview that rapidly degenerated into a mud-slinging 'trainwreck.'

Carlson invited Avenatti to appear on his primetime show Thursday night, ostensibly to discuss Avenatti's rumored bid for president in 2020. Carlson opened by promising not to refer to Avenatti as a "creepy porn lawyer."

Trouble began moments into the interview. As Avenatti was touting his hardline anti-Russia stance, the Fox News chyron flashed up the text: "Does America want creepy porn lawyer as pres?"

A teenager has been jailed for murdering his stepmother with an axe and samurai sword, after becoming "obsessed" with online videos of beheading, suicide, and mass murder, claiming he had become "fed up" with his life.

Rueben Brathwaite, 17, from St Clears, Carmarthenshire, in west Wales, admitted murdering his stepmother, Fiona Scourfield, 54, at their countryside farm before attempting to upload images of her body to the internet.

Swansea Crown Court heard on Friday how the 17-year-old had developed a fascination with videos of beheading, suicide, and mass murder on "imageboard" website 4chan leading up to the "horrific" murder.

The court was told that Brathwaite immediately called 999 to confess to the killing, telling an operator he had struck his stepmother's head multiple times with an axe, after becoming "fed up" with his life.

In the 999 call to police Brathwaite said: "I've just killed someone. The person is Fiona Scourfield. I know she's dead. Her pulse has stopped. There's no signs of life.

Our diversity is our greatest strength.

After playing clips of Democratic politicians reciting that truth of modern liberalism, Tucker Carlson asked, "How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Since you've made this our new national motto, please be specific."

Reaction to Carlson's question, with some declaring him a racist for having raised it, suggests that what we are dealing with here is not a demonstrable truth but a creed not subject to debate.

Yet the question remains valid: Where is the scientific, historic or empirical evidence that the greater the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of a nation, the stronger it becomes?

A case of police misconduct was so outrageous and so egregious that a police officer has actually been sentenced to prison this week. Former officer William Dukes Jr. of the Providence Police Department will spend the better part of the next four years in a cage for the horrifying treatment, abuse, and kidnapping of an innocent man - all for filing a complaint against him.

According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Dukes was sentenced Thursday to 42 months in federal prison and three years' supervised release for willfully depriving a Kentucky citizen of his constitutional rights under color of law. Helping to secure this sentence was the fact that this home invasion and assault was captured on video.

The incident happened in May of 2016 when Dukes pulled over Jeffrey Littlepage around 11:00 pm and was apparently so rude that Littlepage called the Providence City Dispatch and Kentucky State Police stating he wanted to make a complaint. Littlepage had committed no crime and was let off go after Dukes pulled him over. However, when Littlepage called to make the complaint, Dukes answered. Then, all hell broke loose.

I was caught in a twitterstorm of hatred yesterday, much of it led by mainstream media journalists like David Aaronovitch and Dan Hodges, for daring to suggest that the basic elements of Boshirov and Petrov's story do in fact stack up. What became very plain quite quickly was that none of these people had any grasp of the detail of the suspects' full twenty minute interview, but had just seen the short clips or quotes as presented by British corporate and state media.

As I explained in my last post, what first gave me some sympathy for the Russians' story and drew me to look at it closer, was the raft of social media claims that there was no snow in Salisbury that weekend and Stonehenge had not been closed. In fact, Stonehenge was indeed closed on 3 March by heavy snow, as confirmed by English Heritage. So the story that they came to Salisbury on 3 March but could not go to Stonehenge because of heavy snow did stand up, contrary to almost the entire twittersphere.

Once there was some pushback of truth about this on social media, people started triumphantly posting the CCTV images from 4 March to prove that there was no snow lying in Central Salisbury on 4 March. But nobody ever said there was snow on 4 March - in fact Borisov and Petrov specifically stated that they learnt there was a thaw so they went back. However when they got there, they encountered heavy sleet and got drenched through. That accords precisely with the photographic evidence in which they are plainly drenched through.

Under the eyes of Chemnitz's Karl Marx statue, the sight of snarling bronze wolves with their right paws outstretched seems out of place. However, the artist behind the work hopes it will spark a "discussion" in German politics.

Titled "the wolves are back?," the installation features ten bronze statues of aggressive-looking wolves, many with their right paws outstretched as if they are doing a Hitler salute. Others, meanwhile, are blindfolded.

Describing his work as a "political vigil," artist Rainer Opolka's installation in Chemnitz comes two weeks after the death of a German man, allegedly killed by two migrants, sparked protests and rioting in the city.

Days after opening, Italy's pioneering sex doll brothel has been shut by authorities over a "lack of hygiene" and other offenses. All eight of the dolls have been seized for forensic examination by authorities.

Police raided the establishment on Wednesday, seizing the silicone sex workers. Until its sudden closure on Wednesday, LumiDolls in Torino, northwestern Italy charged clients €80 ($90) for 30 minutes of alone time with the hyper realistic dolls which cost roughly 2,000 euro each to produce.

Authorities are concerned over hygiene at the establishment and also insufficient information on the materials the dolls were made from and their country of manufacture, according to Wired Italy. The brothel owners claim that they clean the dolls for two hours once a client has finished with them. Police are also investigating whether the brothel breached Italian laws on renting out accommodation and alleged but unspecified illegal activity.

I am currently away for a few days and so haven't been able to study the interview of Petrov and Boshirov in any great detail, though I have read the transcript and seen something of the reaction from a number of different quarters. I don't really want to comment much on the credibility or otherwise of their claims, but rather on something far more important, which seems - not for the first time in this case - to have been largely forgotten (please do forgive any rough formatting on this piece - I've had to do it on an iPhone as I don't have my laptop with me).

For some time now, I have been concerned that our generation has been busy burying some of the most cherished legal concepts that many of our forebears seemed to instinctively understand, and which were enshrined into English Common Law. Concepts such as innocent until proven guilty, and that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution to prove its case against the accused, rather than on the accused to prove his or her defense against the accusations.

My biggest initial gripe in the Salisbury case was that the British Government completely discarded these concepts and simply presented unsubstantiated accusations as if they were fact. Not only did this prejudice the investigation from the outset, but it went a long way towards poisoning the wells of justice. So much for their much vaunted "British Values".

More recently, the same has been done again. The Metropolitan Police, The Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty's Government (TMP/CPS/HMG) named two suspects in the case, stating that they had enough evidence to prosecute the men. They then presented at least some of that evidence, before - at least in the case of the Government and the media - then going on to treat the suspects as if it had been proven that they had brought something called "Novichok" into the country and had carried out an assassination attempt on 4th March at the home of Sergei Skripal at 47 Christie Miller Road, Salisbury.

But it has not been proven. Very far from it. Accusations are not convictions. Suspects are not culprits. And if we are going to pretend that the extraordinarily flimsy evidence against the two men - at least that presented in public - is enough to claim "case closed; culprits caught", then we have basically torn up 1,000 years or so of legal history, and are pretty well lost as a nation.