Let's get this out of the way: there's no doubt that Donald Trump's policies may pose a direct threat to certain classes of American people. But in the wake of his Tuesday night election as president of the United States, there has been a wave of people worrying for the physical safety of Mexicans, Muslims, and anyone else who isn't white, male, and gender-conforming. The fear seems to legitimately be that there are would-be perpetrators of sexual assault and race-based violence that have been well-behaved so far but will now, emboldened by a President-elect Trump, suddenly go wild with the raping and the hate crimes.

Implausible? I think so. But the narrative has been bolstered by a few high-profile incidents of alleged aggression in Trump's America.

The first one to really go viral involved a Muslim female student at the University of Louisiana who claimed to have had her hijab ripped off and her wallet stolen the day after Trump's election by two white men wearing Trump hats. But on Thursday, local police announced that the young woman had admitted she fabricated the story. "This incident is no longer under investigation," the Lafayette Police Department said in a press release.

In another incident, this one in San Diego, a young Muslim woman's purse and car were stolen by one white male and one Hispanic male. While the men allegedly made negative comments about Muslims, it seems car stealing was more their motivation than harassment or intimidation—which is obviously shitty, but not necessarily a Trump-inspired act of bigotry.

Rumors have circulated since protests and riots broke out following the election of Donald Trump last week claiming billionaire globalist and notorious meddler George Soros is backing the anti-Trump movement in an attempt to further destabilize the nation.

Although the links thus far have, indeed, circumstantially indicated Soros' involvement, the connections haven't been entirely clear — until now.

While it's certainly true Soros hasn't forked over a personal check to any participants in these events — frankly, even suggesting that would be the case ignorantly ignores the larger issues at play — the association of organizations and groups his Open Society Foundations funding is not only evident, it should not be dismissed.

When Soros-backed groups are entangled in the affairs of any nation, massive upheaval tends to follow — and not necessarily for the better. Whether or not you support the growing anti-Trump movement, a bit of background concerning this fact shows the need for apprehension — this isn't a simple matter of influencing policies to fit a liberal ideology.

Apart from involvement in Albania, Liberia, and many other nations, his tampering in the affairs of Ukraine not only remodeled its politics and economics, it ultimately fueled tensions with Russia, which recently reached a fever pitch.

If a consistent internet connection is more important to you than having an active sex life, you wouldn't be alone. According to a new study, 4 in 10 of us identify Wi-Fi as our most important daily need, above sex, chocolate and alcohol.

The study, carried about by Wi-Fi connectivity provider iPass, surveyed 1,700 working professionals across Europe and the US about their connectivity habits. It involved asking participants to rank the importance of Wi-Fi against other "human luxuries and necessities" on a scale of 1-4, with one being most important and 4 bring least important. Wi-Fi was labelled most important by 40.2% of respondents, followed by sex (36.6%), chocolate (14.3%) and alcohol, which was ranked as the number one daily essential by 8.9% of respondents.

"Wi-Fi is not only the most popular method of internet connectivity, it has surpassed many other human luxuries and necessities," said Pat Hume, Chief Commercial Officer at iPass. "The idea that Wi-Fi would be considered more important than sex, alcohol and chocolate would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. For some time now, the internet has appeared on the bottom line of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, almost as a longstanding joke in geek culture. Recently, the idea has gone mainstream."

Dozens of anti-Michel Temer protesters disrupted a session of the National Congress in Brasilia, occupying the lower chamber and calling for military intervention. Meanwhile in Rio, thousands demonstrated and clashed with police outside the assembly.

A group of around 50-60 protesters stormed the Chamber of Deputies of the Brazilian congress in Brazil's capital, breaking a window and forcing their way onto the main speaker's stage. Several security guards were reportedly injured.

The demonstrators shouted slogans against corruption and Michel Temer's center-right government, which replaced the government of Dilma Rousseff following her impeachment. They sang the praises of Sergio Moro, a federal judge known for his work against official corruption and money laundering. The protesters denied any political affiliation and asked for the military to intervene.

"They're giving away our country to the bandits. Our wealth is going away," a protester said, as quoted by the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.

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.